This article offers a preliminary analysis of the language of certain varieties of American comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater(from roughly 1910–1930)and,later,out of the culture of popular magazines from(roughly)the 1920s to the 1950s.The focus is on the exemplary and highly original comic language of S.J.Perelman(1904–1979),the Jewish prose humorist,and Perelman’s quasi-mentor,the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho Marx(1890–1979),who was renowned for his improvisational wit.The article’s purpose is to explicate,with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics,some aspects of these highly original,self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices.It also tentatively explores the signif icance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and,thus,the links between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context.The theoretical perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature and Austin’s Speech Act Theory—both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics—as well as Deleuze’s concept of a‘minor literature,’a theory of modernist literary practice substantially determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism. This article offers a preliminary analysis of the language of certain varieties of American comedy that arose out of the Vaudeville theater (from roughly 1910-1930) and, later, out of the culture of popular magazines from (roughly) the 1920s to the 1950s. The focus is on the example and highly original comic language of SJ Perelman (1904-1979), the Jewish prose humorist, and Perelman’s quasi-mentor, the legendary stage and screen comedian Groucho Marx (1890-1979), who was renowned for his improvisational wit. The article’s purpose is to explicate, with reference to important developments in 20th century linguistics and semiotics, some aspects of these highly original, self-conscious and indeed modernist verbal practices. Still also tentatively explores the signif icance of these unconventional linguistic intuitions in regards to broader questions concerning the possibility of effective communication and, thus, the links between discourse and social ideology in a mid-century American context. theoretical perspectives brought to bear on this subject include Grice’s theory of conversational implicature and Austin’s Speech Act Theory-both cornerstones of linguistic pragmatics-as well as Deleuze’s concept of a’minor literature, ’a theory of modernist literary practice substantially determined by earlier developments in semiotic theory and philosophical pragmatism