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/lit/ - Literature

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16750736 No.16750736 [Reply] [Original]

Why is the most iconic English language joke not an actual joke?

>> No.16750746

>>16750736
>he didn't get the joke

>> No.16750749

>>16750736
It is a joke.

Are you ESL (for real)?

>> No.16750757

>>16750749
It's not a joke, it's an uremarkable & straightforward answer to the question.

>> No.16750761

Anti-humor is the highest form of comedy.

>> No.16750763

>>16750736
>Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other vagina.

>> No.16750775

>>16750757
That's the joke.

>> No.16750777

>>16750775
yes, so its a joke by not being a joke. But why is it the most iconic joke, rather than something more straightforward?

>> No.16750779

>>16750757
The chicken crossed so he would run over and get to Heaven ("the other side").

>> No.16750787

>>16750777
Because it's one of those stupid things you can tell kids, same as "knock knock" joke, so everyone remembers it fondly.

>> No.16750789

>>16750777
there's a crossing the road joke with tomatoes that actually delivers.

>> No.16750790

>>16750736
The chicken crosses the other road to get to the 'other side'. Yes, but what is the 'other side'? Is it merely the opposite pavement? No! It is Death! As the chicken crosses the road, a car speeds towards her. She is decapitated by the bumper, hen's viscera on hot tarmac. The chicken never reaches the material 'other side', only the spiritual 'other side'. Profound Western joke, 'why did the chicken cross the road?', tells us not just a simple story, but an Aesopian fable. The other side of the road may look better, but if one does not have the courage, the deftness, to reach it - one is doomed to be consumed by the road, and the machines which course upon on it.

>> No.16750795

>>16750790
I read this in Zizek's voice.

>> No.16750797

>>16750779
Oh.
My God.

>> No.16750801

>>16750797
this is the actual punch line right?

>> No.16750803

Why did the chicken cross the road? there was SEED across the street. SNEED AND FEED.

>> No.16750806
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16750806

>>16750736
You know what's the BIGGEST joke?
809+ threads in three days!
/lit/ has gone ultra turbo accelerautistically fast.
and it's threads like these that are hardly above /b/ level that add to the problem.

>> No.16750813

>>16750806
You're doing a good job, anon. This board should be inhospitable to retards. Make it so.

>> No.16750816

>>16750806
How is a thread asking a novel question about language NOT significantly better than the countless "whats ur fav book" shitposts all over this board?

>> No.16750837

Remember that most jokes rely on an unexpected outcome, the surprise is the key element. However, the human mind is naturally always working towards predicting outcomes, so when the question "why did the chicken cross the road?" is asked, the mind expects a joke, meaning that it expects a surprise answer, therefore it tries to quickly find the possible "funny" reason for the chicken to cross a road. However, before it can find anything, the answer is given - "to get to the other side". It works well because the one who tricked you is not the joke teller, he was as honest as a man can be. The one who tricked you was yourself.

>> No.16750853

>>16750777
are you on the spectrum?

>> No.16750862

>>16750779
Thanks, I'm ESL and I literally never understood it. In yurop it is usually translated literally, turning it into an anti-joke

>> No.16750865

>>16750816
I DON'T WANT BETTER THAN SHIT! I WANT GOOD! /LIT/ IS A PLACE TO DISCUSS LITERATURE AND NOTHING ELSE! GET THE FUCK OUT IF YOU DON'T READ! BEFORE YOU HAVEN'T SPENT DECADES IN LIBRARIES, BOOKSHOPS, OR IN YOUR FUCKING DUNGEON READING THE CANON FROM THE GREEKS TO THE MEMES, THEN I DON'T GIVE TWO FLYING FUCKS ABOUT YOUR OPINION IN HERE. (The road-crossing chicken joke is in fact an anti-joke for kids, but the ambivalence of the answer gives you a sensitive chuckle when you hear it later in life.) MAKE THREADS ABOUT BOOKS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

>> No.16750873

>>16750862
>he believes a shitpost

>> No.16750884

>>16750865
jokes are oral traditions. like homer.

>> No.16750890

>>16750853
i dont think so

>> No.16750894

>>16750862
It's okay. I have the same problem with your jokes sometimes too. I was watching a Czech movie where they kept saying "coffin creme dessert" and I was confused because I had no idea there was a dessert called rukvicku.

>> No.16750898

>>16750884
LISTEN HERE, YOU DUMB FUCKING SMART ASS! YOU THINK YOU'RE BEING FUNNY? TELL ME ONE JOKE THAT IS OF LITERARY VALUE. RIGHT. FUCKING. NOW!

>> No.16750905

>>16750898
not the person you replied to but what would you say is 'literary value'?

>> No.16750916

>>16750898
have you ever heard of a guy called William Shakespeare?

>> No.16750923

>>16750862
It is an anti-joke that guy is a retard, the "other side means afterlife" thing is just people overthinking it

>> No.16750928

>>16750813
true

>> No.16750959

>>16750736
Because English is not an actual language.
Fitting.

>> No.16750970

>>16750959
faggot 90 IQ scum

>> No.16751026

>>16750898
>>16750905
>>16750916
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlEJbs02wAM

>> No.16751044

Growing up i always heard the joke go like this.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side.

Why did the monkey cross the road?

To fuck the chicken.

>> No.16751045

I've tried to come up with a joke my entire life. I finally succeeded a couple of weeks ago and I haven't had the chance to share it with anyone, so I've decided to post it on here.

>Did you hear the one about the cunnilingus rapist?
...
...
...
...
>He never goes down without a fight

>> No.16751053

>>16751045
Why don't volcanoes talk?

Because others are always interrupting.

t. me aged 7

>> No.16751055

>>16751045
kek

>> No.16751059

>>16751045
>>16751053
Chuckled at both.

>> No.16751204

>>16751059
Don't you mean...

clucked?

>> No.16751289

>>16751045
>Did you hear the one about the running linguist capist?
...
...
...
...
>If he studied american english, and that cape was a mozetta, he'd be a:
>running
>punning
>linguist
>jingoist
>capist
>papist
>rapist

>> No.16751316

>>16750736
Why did the used chewing gum cross the road?

Why did the dead ant cross the road?

What's white and can't climb a fence?

What's blue and looks like a bucket?

What's red and looks like a bucket?

>> No.16752546

>>16751053
lol

>> No.16752564

>>16751289
I don't think I'm a very funny person but I think this is the best joke I came up with. The guy asked which translation of Ficciones to buy and I said "buy the Pierre Menard translation because it sticks very close to the original."

>> No.16753712

>>16750761
this

>> No.16753719

>>16751045
kek not bad
I would laugh at it in a bar

>> No.16754007

>>16751045
kek it's a good one

>> No.16754951

>>16750853
Of course he is. Everyone is, that's why it's a spectrum!

>> No.16755602

>>16750787
*knock-knock*
>...

>> No.16755627

>>16755602
Who's there?

>> No.16755634

>>16755627
Trans..

>> No.16755640

>>16755634
Trans who?

>> No.16755645

>>16755640
Transitions to the other side!

>> No.16755653

It’s funny because it’s making fun of chickens. They are simple creatures. They couldn’t possibly have any other motive.

>> No.16755656

>>16750736

You've missed the point of the joke (or: riddle), OP. Humor can be derived by thwarting the original intent of an utterance by replying to it with an unexpected utterance, one which would be an appropriate reply under different circumstances. After the setup, "Why did the chicken cross the road?", one would expect some sort of reason or explanation, but the punchline, "the backstroke", is humorous because because it's non-sensical and therefore unexpected, yet it can be understood in another context in that it calls to mind the idea of a chicken swimming in a pool, perhaps there's a pool or pond on the other side of the road. This is why the joke works.

For more on this species of humor, see Kant.

>> No.16755689
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16755689

>>16750736

>> No.16755692

What's black and white and read all over? Nothing, niggers in the cotton field can't read.

>> No.16755703

>>16750736
No Soap Radio!

HAHA get it?

>> No.16755725
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16755725

>>16750736
A french man walks into a concentration camp, "Bonjou'!". Picrel has filtered thousands

>> No.16755802

>>16750898
"I'd rather a bottle Infront of me than a frontal lobotomy"

>> No.16756216
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16756216

I'm autistic and for years I thought the punchline to the joke was the double meaning of "side" to be "side of the road" and "side dish"
I visualized a piece of fried chicken crossing the road to be with corn cobs or mashed potatoes
When I found out the real meaning I was disappointed because it was way less funny to me

>> No.16756430

>>16755802
>frontal lobotomy
ATM machine.

>> No.16756453

>>16756216
the more I time spend with high functioning autists the more I like them. Based literal interpreter.

>> No.16756487

>>16756430
>ass to mouth machine
what?

>> No.16758046

>>16755645
Didn't get it at first. Clevuh

>> No.16758178

>>16750736
Why is the first novel a mockery of previous chivalric novels? People have been around a long time and everything has been thought already. We are building on the ruins of those who came before, even when those are ourselves

>> No.16758196

>>16758178
>first novel
>is preceeded by novels
what did he meme by this?

>> No.16758219

>>16752564
You'd get a sensible chuckle in the editing room of the New Yorker