Alan Dundes

Carl R. Pagter

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.

Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire

Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing

Anyone who has ever filled in a form in triplicate, taken an aptitude test, or been rebuffed by a form letter will appreciate the urban folklore found in this collection. Urban people as a folk are bound together by their unhappy experiences in battling "the system," whether that system is the machinery of government or the office where one works. The wonderfully expressive materials in this book—chain letters, memoranda, notices, and cartoons—touch upon every major controversy of urban America: racism, sex, politics, automation, alienation, welfare, the women's movement, military mentality, and office bureaucracy. The humor of the materials pinpoints the ills and frustrations of modern society and becomes, in turn, an escape from them.

Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire

Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded

Collects and analyzes office copier folklore and discusses how they reflect major concerns in American values and worldview

More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire

When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators

Anyone who has ever filled in a form in triplicate, taken an aptitude test, or been rebuffed by a form letter will appreciate the urban folklore found in this collection. Urban people as a folk are bound together by their unhappy experiences in battling "the system," whether that system is the machinery of government or the office where one works. The wonderfully expressive materials in this book--chain letters, memoranda, notices, and cartoons--touch upon every major controversy of urban America: racism, sex, politics, automation, alienation, welfare, the women's movement, military mentality, and office bureaucracy. The humor of the materials pinpoints the ills and frustrations of modern society and becomes, in turn, an escape from them.

Carl R. Pagter

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