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Thursday, July 31, 2008

World's Oldest Joke Is About A Fart: Sumerians Didn't Know About Ohio State University

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.

2 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. Did you hear the one about the Pharoah, Zeus and King Solomon? They walked into a bar . . .

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