Dear @latimes,
Today, again, you couldn’t help yourself and ruined a perfectly good headline with a groan-inducing pun. Why? Does it help getting the message across? Does it signal that you find the issue ridiculous?
I consider you a serious newspaper – that’s why I’m a subscriber. Believe me, your obsessive headline punning does not help retain those last 25 people who actually read your print edition.
Puns are the lowest form of humor, or so I’ve been told. They don’t have to be, though. The problem is when they’re too easy like that headline above. There’s nothing really unexpected about that. But if a good one comes along, completely out of the blue, they’re hilarious.
Wouldn’t mind a “good” pun now and then – “now and then” being the operative expression. There’s hardly a day when the L.A. Times doesn’t try at least one headline pun. And the topic of the article doesn’t seem to matter. Puleeze…