Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing: Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire

by Alan Dundes and Carl R. Pagter

Book Overview

Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing documents the thriving folklore tradition that circulates in the workplace. Alan Dundes and Carl Pagter have collected more than two hundred and fifty "signs of the times"-the office memoranda, parodies, cartoons, and poems that daily make their way through copy machines, interoffice mail systems, and fax machines and are affixed to bulletin boards and water coolers. The rich vein of urban folklore tapped by this...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081432357X
• ISBN13: 9780814323571
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating Look at American folk humor

Great fun, and a fascinating look at urban legend and myth. Copiers gave the joke new life, as bits of popular wisdom spread through offices and then around the country. Not unlike the funny-forwards epidemic on today's eMail networks, this book captures the growth of folk humor in a thoroughly enjoyable way! Complete with behavioral annotations that peek just below the laughter. Highly recommended!