AS any editor will tell you, these are the doggerel days. Something about -- this buoyant season raises journalists to heights of low comedy. Humor in verse and prose streams out of typewriters, the idea being to get at least some of it into print. These attempts rarely succeed. But in the holiday spirit, I felt that a few such offerings should be shared with our readers.

George Church, senior writer in our Business and Economy sections, committed some remarkable "economic carols." Jangled Dems, to the tune of Jingle Bells, starts off: "Democrats, Democrats, Why are you so blue? Nixon stole our policy, What ever shall we do-o?" Then there is Goodbye Gold (to the tune of Deck the Halls): "Flood the world with paper dollars, Fa la la la la, la la la la; Pay no mind to Frenchmen's hollers, Fa la la la la, la la la la." Other titles: God Rest Ye, Jackson Grayson and Should Milton Friedman Be Forgot.

Punning seems to be a special passion with many writers, from James Joyce to Peter De Vries to numerous practitioners at TIME. A classic example still remembered with shudders on two continents was entitled "Fangs a Lot," an article about what had happened to Kwame Nkrumah's zoo "since the day he was ostrichized." That one actually appeared in the World section of April 8, 1966. Last week Associate Editor Spencer Davidson was faced with the news that Italian shops have been giving their customers candy instead of small change. Instantly Davidson saw the punny possibilities. He turned out a saga called--what else?--"The Italian Confection." The scenario involves an economics professor named Mel Marzi (played by Henry Fondant) who comes to Rome for an International Monetary Fund meeting. En route, Marzi stops at a tobacco shop. "I'm a gumdrop in here to get some coins for the Trevi fountain," he says. Instead of a few coins, his change is a chocolate bonbon. "Nougat lire," the tobacconist explains. "Plus ca change, plus c'est la creme chose," observes the professor.

And so it goes. Eventually the professor decides that candy money may be the answer to the world's monetary problems, and devises an arrangement of soft currencies quickly dubbed the Marzi Plan. In the end he makes off with a sweet thing from the typing pool, remembering Ogden Nash's advice that "licorice quicker."

Writers aren't the only ones doing it. In response to a story alleging that shrimp are merely prawns of Japanese commercial interests, Assistant Art Director Arturo Cazeneuve sent out an interoffice memo: "As the kipper of high standards, I want to say just for the halibut that your story is rather scampi in detail." Conditions last week would have been even worse except for the temporary absence of our champion punster, Cinema Critic Stefan Kanfer. In self-defense. Kanfer observes that puns show up in the most ancient writings, and "what was occasional in the classicists was fecund nature to Shakespeare."

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