Every week, The Economist hides puns in its headlines and articles.
We find them.
Latest issue
Issue of May 16, 2026
Issue of May 16, 2026
Headlines
Archipelagoing fast
Briefing · Indonesia’s president is jeopardising the economy and democracy
Riffs on ‘archipelago’ (Indonesia literally is one) while echoing the idiom ‘going fast’ — a nation unravelling at speed, island by island.
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Lacktology: not enough breastfeeding
Science & Technology · Why many women cannot make enough breast milk
‘Lactology’ is a portmanteau coinage doing double duty: naming the missing medical specialism while rhyming with the deficiency it describes.
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Darecations
Culture · Who wants to relax on holiday?
A portmanteau of ‘dare’ and ‘vacations’ coined by Pinterest — the article credits it as a trend term, but the Economist is happy to run with it.
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Buried in the text
Purrsonality test
Leaders · Sir Keir Starmer has failed abjectly. He should go
A subhead about Larry the cat — Number 10’s ‘chief mouser’ and beacon of stability — turning ‘personality’ into a feline pun.
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Leaky pipeline
Science & Technology · Why many women cannot make enough breast milk
Used as a subhead about lactocyte dysfunction — exploiting the standard tech/industry ‘leaky pipeline’ metaphor for lost talent against its literal meaning here: milk that won’t flow.
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Oh, those links to the banker
The Americas · A bombshell leak threatens Flávio Bolsonaro’s election bid
Subhead echoing ‘Oh, Those Golden Slippers’ or similar torch-song phrasing, while ‘links’ does double work: the connections Flávio denied, and the text messages that exposed them.
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Curve Bali
Briefing · Indonesia’s president is jeopardising the economy and democracy
A subhead playing on ‘curveball’ — the fiscal shock Indonesia faces — with Bali standing in for the ball, grounding the idiom in Indonesian geography.
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A tidy Sumatra
Briefing · Indonesia’s president is jeopardising the economy and democracy
Echoes ‘a tidy sum’ — Prabowo’s lavish spending — while naming one of Indonesia’s main islands. Quietly excellent.
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Borneo conservative
Briefing · Indonesia’s president is jeopardising the economy and democracy
‘Born conservative’ compressed into Borneo — another Indonesian island — for a section about Prabowo’s authoritarian tendencies dressed in traditional clothing.
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Always wanting Timor
Briefing · Indonesia’s president is jeopardising the economy and democracy
‘Always wanting more’ rendered via Timor — the territory whose annexation defined Suharto’s expansionism — a pun that earns its keep with historical weight.
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The book of jobs
Finance & Economics · America is experiencing a productivity miracle
Subhead in an article full of biblical language (‘nigh-biblical pestilence’, ‘miracle’) — the Book of Job meets the jobs market, with Steve Jobs hovering in the background.
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tooth-aching 45,000 years before modern humans are known to have been engaging in such activities
Science & Technology · Neanderthals went to the dentist (really)
Slipping ‘tooth-aching’ in for ‘eye-watering’ in an article literally about tooth drilling — understated and well-placed.
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Closed for business
The World This Week · Business [The World This Week]
Subhead on the Strait of Hormuz closure — the strait is literally closed, but ‘closed for business’ evokes a shuttered shop, neatly collapsing geopolitics into commerce.
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A fragmented state
The World This Week · Politics [The World This Week]
Subhead on the UK local election results — ‘state’ meaning both the political condition of fragmentation and the nation-state itself.
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Locks, stocks and barrels
The World This Week · Business [The World This Week]
Subhead on Panama Canal traffic surging — the idiom ‘lock, stock and barrel’ repurposed with canal locks and oil barrels doing literal work.
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Kamikaze capex
Finance & Economics · Big tech is sacrificing its cashflows to prop up the AI boom
Big tech’s suicidal capital expenditure gets the compound treatment — sacrificing returns for the AI mission, just as the article argues.
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Things Can Only Get Better
Britain · Who can save the Labour Party?
The 1997 D:Ream song that was Labour’s election anthem — deployed here with deliberate irony, since things have conspicuously not gotten better.
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If you gaze long into an abyss
Britain · Labour has turned into the Conservative Party
Nietzsche’s aphorism used as a subhead in a piece arguing Labour has become what it despised — the abyss stares back, and it’s wearing a blue rosette.
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