THE INTERNATIONAL SAVE THE PUN FOUNDATION

Founded by the late John Crosbie in 1979, the International Save The Pun Foundation has become the world's largest and fastest-growing apocryphal society. Since one person in five in North America is a functional illiterate, and since everywhere the little red schoolhouse is full of too many little-read students, the Foundation exists to arouse a greater interest in reading by encouraging people to have fun with words.

In the pursuit of its fundamental goal to make reading fun, The International Save The Pun Foundation publishes a monthly newsletter, the pundit; organizes dinners for punsters; promotes and reviews books and tapes by paranomaniacs; organizes Punster-Of-The-Year awards; and generally enjoys itself.

The current chairman of the bored, Norman Gilbert, is a financial planner based in Toronto, Ontario. He first subscribed to the pundit in 1984, after hearing John Crosbie in a radio interview, and has never looked back. When John died in 1994, Norman acquired the rights to the Foundation from John's estate, the transaction taking place, appropriately, on April Fool's Day.

Under Norman's leadership, the Foundation's 1,600 members continue to stumble onward, spreading the good (and sometimes not-so-good) words, and scattering their gems of linguistic libertinism about them like Johnny Appleseed, although perhaps not always with the same level of appreciation. Hysterically screaming "Up the pun!", this unruly band of rebels may be found waving tattered copies of the pundit, and storming the barricades of grammatical rules and regulations around the world. From Australia to Zimbabwe, wherever they are erected by the steadily retreating phalanxes of pedants and self-appointed guardians of our language, the barriers are falling, and people are having fun with the language, thanks to the unceasing efforts of Norman and his plucky crew.

You can become a lifetime member* of the Foundation (the package includes a five-year subscription to the pundit) for a very modest amount.