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.