Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" is a common riddle or joke in several languages. The answer or punchline is: "To get to the other side." The riddle is an example of anti-humor, in that the curious setup of the joke leads the listener to expect a traditional punchline, but they are instead given a simple statement of fact. "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.
The riddle was mentioned in print in 1847, in 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, 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.
Read more about Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?: Variations
Famous quotes containing the words cross the road?, chicken and/or cross:
“I know we’re not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don’t know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don’t care that we don’t.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Clogged and soft and sloppy eyes
Have lost the light that bites or terrifies.
There are no swans and swallows any more.
The people settled for chicken and shut the door.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“But soft, behold! lo where it comes again!
I’ll cross it though it blast me. Stay, illusion!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)