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

ISBN: 081432357X

ISBN13: 9780814323571

Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing: Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (Humor in Life and Letters Series)

(Part of the Humor in Life and Letters Series)

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Format: Hardcover

Condition: Good*

*Best Available: (missing dust jacket)

$19.59
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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 imaginative volume constitutes a great testament to one of the world's most prolific authors-anonymous.
The popularity of the items featured in this timely book is apparent by their reproduction in mass or popular cultural form-as greeting cards, plaques, and bumper stickers-reminding us of the inevitable interplay between folklore and mass culture. Dundes and Pagter clearly demonstrate the existence of folklore in the modern urban technological world and refute the notion that folklore reflects only the past.

Customer Reviews

1 rating

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!
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