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Why did the chicken cross the road?

"Warum hat das Hühnchen die Straße überquert?" (En: Why did the Chicken cross the road?) ist eine Scherzfrage. Die Antwort lautet: "Um auf die andere Seite zu kommen." Diese Scherzfrage ist ein Beispiel für einen Antiwitz. Der Zuhöhrer erwartet als Antwort eine lustige Pointe, bekommt aber stattdessen eine normale Antwort. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" has become largely iconic as an exemplary generic joke to which most people know the answer, and has been repeated and changed numerous times over the course of history.

History

An 1847 version of the joke

The riddle appeared in an 1847 edition of The Knickerbocker, a New York City monthly magazine:

There are ‘quips and quillets’ which seem actual conundrums, but yet are none. Of such is this: ‘Why does a chicken cross the street?[’] Are you ‘out of town?’ Do you ‘give it up?’ Well, then: ‘Because it wants to get on the other side!’

The joke had become widespread by the 1890s,Vorlage:Citation needed when a variant version appeared in the magazine Potter's American Monthly:

Why should not a chicken cross the road? It would be a fowl proceeding.

Variations

There are many riddles that assume a familiarity with this well-known riddle and its answer, for example by supplying a different answer, such as "it was too far to walk around". One class of variations enlists a creature other than the chicken to cross the road, in order to refer back to the original riddle. For example, a turkey or duck crosses "because it was the chicken's day off," and a dinosaur "because chickens didn't exist yet." Some variants are both puns and references to the original, such as "Why did the duck cross the road?" "To prove he's no chicken".

Other variations replace side with another word often to form a pun. Some examples are "Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide" or "Why did the whale cross the ocean? To get to the other tide." A mathematical version asks, "Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?" "To get to the same side." Alternatively, the punchline can be regarded as the chicken "getting to the other side" as a euphemism for death, and crossing the road being its method of suicide.

Another class of variations, designed for written rather than oral transmission, employs parody by pretending to have notable individuals or institutions give characteristic answers to the question posed by the riddle. As with the lightbulb joke, variants on this theme are widespread.

Further reading

• Robert Flach: Why did the chicken cross the road? (science/philosophy). In: allauthors.com.
• Ryan North: Jokes explained: Why did the chicken cross the road?. In: insaneabode.com.
• Yves Roumazeilles: Why did the chicken cross the road? The story of a meme. In: roumazeilles.net. 31 December 2006.

• Vsauce: Why did the chicken cross the road?. In: youtube.com. 16 September 2012.

Kategorie:Joke cycles Kategorie:Chicken Kategorie:19th-century introductions Kategorie:Works originally published in The Knickerbocker