Puns, Public Discourse and Postmodernism

Abstract

Over the last few decades, puns have become increasingly common in commercial texts ranging from print advertising ("Campbell’s has something that will bowl you over") to T-shirts ("The Puck Stops Here"). The trend is surprising both because the pun is an intricate as well as a literary device and because advertisers usually avoid the risks of using humor as a selling strategy. The appeal of the pun appears to be its stylishness, which provided it with a place in the pop art movement and the culture of the 1960s, and its simultaneity, which has made it the print medium’s competitor of the attention-grabbing television commercial. Recent studies argue that the word play of T-shirts and bumper stickers represent a non-establishment, anti-elitist voice. But in this essay the author suggests that puns used by both corporate advertisers and car owners alike reflect a commercial influence on the language of public texts all across the culture, and a mingling of business and art that is characteristic of postmodernism.