Comments on: Outlaws with puns

By: arnold zwicky

arnold zwicky — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:00:01 +0000

The Outlaw snowclone -- "If X are outlawed, only outlaws will have X" -- appeared on Language Log in a compendium, here, and later here,

By: John Baker

John Baker — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:12:17 +0000

Well, this was impressionistic, so I’m not claiming that this is necessarily something I could defend empirically. Also, it was about 30 years ago. I don’t think any of the companies involved were hair salons (which tend not to have bankruptcies with interesting legal issues), and I think few if any were restaurants; if memory serves (it probably doesn’t), they tended to be retailers and manufacturers.
In concept, it might be possible to do an analysis of whether business failure is correlated with the jokiness of the business name, adjusting for type of business. Jokiness is subjective, but I think there would be broad agreement on which names are intended to be jokes, and in principle it should be possible to get good data for business success or failure. That sounds like a lot of work, but maybe it would make for a good business school project.

By: Bob Richmond

Bob Richmond — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:13:01 +0000

Google finds numerous Chinese restaurants named
A Wok on the Wild Side

By: arnold zwicky

arnold zwicky — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:42:57 +0000

“Disproportionately high percentage” embodies a claim that is (in principle) empirically testable, though it’s not easy to see how. One wrinkle is that jokey business names are heavy in certain types of businesses (hair salons, for example) and light in others; another is that bankruptcies are frequent for certain types of businesses (restaurants, for example; there are lawyers who specialize in restaurant bankruptcies) and rarer for others.

By: John Baker

John Baker — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:26:19 +0000

When I studied bankruptcy law some years ago, it seemed to me that a disproportionately high percentage of the bankrupt companies had jokey names. That gave me something of a kneejerk reaction against punning and other nonserious business names ever since.

By: arnold zwicky

arnold zwicky — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:58:05 +0000

Puns on pho abound. AZBlog postings here, here, and here.

By: Julian C. Lander

Julian C. Lander — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:37:47 +0000

My favorite is “Hindenburger,” but I wonder what fraction of its customers get the reference.

By: Chris Brockett (@chris_brockett)

Chris Brockett (@chris_brockett) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:30:50 +0000

Another in the same vein, in Bellevue, WA, and presumably elsewhere: What the Pho’