Something that has always interested me about Abraham Lincoln is , not surprisingly , his sense of humor.As far as I can tell , he's the first American President to have one. That's because the term “ sense of humor”really wasn't in common usage until the eighteen­sixties and seventies. In the eighteen­forties and fifties , it was called “ the sense of the ridiculous ”, and didn't have the positive connotations ( 隐含意义 ) that “sense of humor”has today.Back then , what was ridiculous was what invited ridicule ( 讥笑 ) . Funniness and cruelty went hand in hand. Of course , they still do a lot of arm ­ in ­ arm walking in our day as well. Lincoln's humor was very different because , for one thing , it was actually “ humor ” as what the word meant in his time.We don't make the distinction between “ wit( 风趣 ) ” and “humor” any more ; but in the nineteenth century people did.Wit was unpleasant and offensive while humor was pleasant and sympathetic.It's the difference we note now when we distinguish between “laughing with”and“laughing at” . Lincoln was much more about “laughing with”than “laughing at” . And when“laughing at” , it was often himself he was teasing. In the famous Lincoln ­ Douglas debates , when Douglas accused Lincoln of being two­faced , Lincoln replied , referencing his plain looking , “ Honestly , if I were two ­ faced , would I be showing you this one ? ” And , in a way , Lincoln's face itself tells us much about his sense of humor. You can comb through thousands of photographs of politicians , soldiers , and the like from Lincoln's time and not find a single smile. True , the long exposures( 曝光 ) required for photographs of that time made smiling difficult.Yet Lincoln alone , as far as I can tell , overcame that difficulty. Interestingly , while having a sense of humor , or at least the appearance of one provided by comedy writers has become a necessary characteristic for an American President in our time , in the nineteenth century , too much humor was considered a problem.And that was the case for Lincoln.A journalist covering the Lincoln­Douglas debates commented that “ I could not take a real personal liking to the man , owing to an inborn weakness...that he was extremely fond of jokes , anecdotes and stories. ”