Michael Erard's Pledge to his Readers

I first came across this essay when it was read on the "World in Words" podcast, and since have been trying to figure out why it's so funny. Of course, the notion of growing and transporting words and figures of speech is intrinsically ridiculous, and hence amusing. More substantively, though, Erard here takes a typical bit of locavore/environmentalist doggerel and, by substituting nonsense for all its valid points, exposes the arrogance and self-congratulation so typical of the genre.

In this way, it's a model bit of satire: funny, subtle, and ultimately substantive.