CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Researchers in Britain said they had unearthed the world's oldest joke today, a 3,900-year-old one-liner from Sumeria: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial, a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." That's it, a groaner about females who cut the cheese. Take the Sumerians, please. Is it possible the lines that make people chuckle have evolved across the centuries, a process of humorist Darwinism? Did they not have mothers-in-law in ancient Sumeria?
Meanwhile, there are plenty of jokes about Ohio State University available here. The Sumerians would have busted a gut laughing, or farting on somebody's lap.
Britain's Telegraph has a story about the world's 10 oldest jokes, a list compiled by a professor at Wolverhampton University. (A name that surely would make the Sumerians grin). AOL has the complete list and wonders if anybody around today thinks they are even funny.
Henny Youngman would be thrilled. Believe he was the one who said there are only two jokes - the wife and the mother-in-law - everything else is just a variation thereof. The Sumerians have just gone up in my estimation. At least they were trying to be funny.
ReplyDeleteDid you hear the one about the Pharoah, Zeus and King Solomon? They walked into a bar . . .
ReplyDelete