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The world's funniest joke?
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| jploveparade |
Worlds Funniest Joke?
http://asia.cnn.com/2002/TECH/scien...iest/index.html
LONDON, England -- The world's funniest joke has been revealed after a year-long search by scientists. In an experiment conducted in Britain, people around the world were invited to judge jokes on an Internet site as well as contribute their own. The LaughLab research, carried out by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman, from the university of Hertfordshire, attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings.
And here it is...
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"
Wiseman said the joke worked across many different countries and appealed to men and women and young and old alike. "Many of the jokes submitted received higher ratings from certain groups of people, but this one had real universal appeal," he said. As well as identifying the joke which appealed most to people around the world, the experiment revealed wide humour differences between nations. People logging onto the LaughLab Web site were invited to rate jokes using a "Giggleometer" which had a five-point scale ranging from "not very funny" to "very funny".
One intriguing result was that Germans -- not renowned for their sense of humour -- found just about everything funny and did not express a strong preference for any type of joke. People from the Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand most enjoyed jokes involving word plays. Many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, displayed a penchant for off-beat surreal humour, while Americans and Canadians preferred jokes where there was a strong sense of superiority -- either because a character looks stupid or is made to look stupid by someone else. Europeans also enjoyed jokes that involved making light of topics that make people feel anxious, such as death, illness and marriage.
Wiseman said: "These results are really interesting. It suggests that people from different parts of the world have fundamentally different senses of humour. "Humour is vital to communication and the more we understand about how people's culture and background affect their sense of humour, the more we will be able to communicate effectively. "Also, we find jokes funny for lots of different reasons. They sometimes make us feel superior to others, reduce the emotional impact of anxiety-provoking situations or surprise us because of some kind of incongruity.
"The hunters joke contained all three elements."
Bizarrely, computer analysis of the data also showed that jokes containing 103 words were thought to be especially funny. The winning "hunters" joke was 102 words long. Many jokes submitted contained references to animals. Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny.
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Ok it's funny but in no way the funniest joke in the world! |
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| DJ Sunburn |
| no way in hell its the funniest |
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| dr me |
| it shows worldwide appeal. it's a good joke :happy2: |
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| dj_s_harrison |
| I saw that on Sky News the other day, no way its the funniest! |
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| Dmatrox |
| that joke is stupid. my response was, er ok... :rolleyes: |
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| Dmatrox |
taken from laughlab.co.uk I liked the canada one :D
heres second place its lame too: :o :rolleyes:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
"I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes" replies Watson.
"And what do you deduce from that?"
Watson ponders for a minute.
"Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?"
Holmes is silent for a moment. "Watson, you idiot!" he says. "Someone has stolen our tent!"
Here are some of the top jokes in different countries:
Top joke in UK
A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.”
Top joke in USA
The American data proved to be somewhat strange. Dave Barry is a well known humourist whose columns are syndicated in many American newspapers. In January 2002 he kindly devoted an entire column to LaughLab. At the end of the column he urged readers to submit jokes that simply ended with the punch line:
‘There's a weasel chomping on my privates.’
Within just a few days we had received over 1500 ‘weasel chomping’ jokes.
One weasel joke scored very highly in the USA and almost became the funniest joke in America. Here it is:
At the parade, the Colonel noticed something unusual going on and asked the Major: “Major Barry, what the devil's wrong with Sergeant Jones’ platoon? They seem to be all twitching and jumping about.”
“Well sir,” says Major Barry after a moment of observation. “There seems to be a weasel chomping on his privates.”
However, ignoring the weasels, the top American joke was…
A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer. His friend says: “Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.” The man then replies: “Yeah, well we were married 35 years.”
Top joke in Canada
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 C. The Russians used a pencil.
Top joke in Australia
This woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out. She rattles off: “Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's WRONG with me, Doctor!?”
The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says: “Well, I can tell you that there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight....”
Top joke in Belgium
Why do ducks have webbed feet?
To stamp out fires.
Why do elephants have flat feet?
To stamp out burning ducks.
Top joke in Germany
A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say: “That's not it” and put it down again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested. The psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army. The soldier picked it up, smiled and said: “That's it.”:D |
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| Maaz |
| quote: | Originally posted by Dmatrox
I liked the canada one :D |
I wonder why :) Yeah, the canadian is a good one, I had already heard it.
Strange, isn't it? We come here from totally different parts of the world and we know almost the same jokes :p |
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| TranceSeeker |
| quote: | Originally posted by Dmatrox
Top joke in Belgium
Why do ducks have webbed feet?
To stamp out fires.
Why do elephants have flat feet?
To stamp out burning ducks.
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Damn this one is bad! |
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| dr me |
| quote: | Originally posted by TranceSeeker
Damn this one is bad! |
agreed.
the canadian one's the best (although its not a joke, cos its actually real) |
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| piggy |
| quote: | Originally posted by jploveparade
And here it is...
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"
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I barely cracked a smile at this one...I liked the Canadian one! :D |
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| Linx_da_cat |
| ahhh that cdn one is classic. i remember getting that sherlock holmes one through email. tis a good joke too. |
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| Technaut |
| defo not the funniest but stil good :p |
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