Press Release 20 December 2001
EMBARGOED TILL 00:01
Laughlab Additional Information
From the 10 000 jokes submitted and the 100 000 people who rated them, a huge amount of information has been collated.
Below is a selection of the most interesting results accompanied by comments from psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman, University of Hertfordshire, who devised the experiment in collaboration with the BA.
Top jokes:47% of people gave the following joke the highest rating ? making it the winning joke so far:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up. "Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce."
Watson says, "I see millions of stars and even if a few of those have planets, it?s quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life."
Holmes replied: "Watson, you idiot, somebody stole our tent!"
The top joke was submitted by Geoff Anandappa, from Blackpool, UK.
The following joke came a close second:
A couple of hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn?t seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his mobile phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator, "My friend is dead! What can I do?"
The operator, in a calm soothing voice says, "Just take it easy. First, let?s make sure he?s dead." There?s silence, then a shot is heard. The guy?s voice comes back on the line. He says, "OK, now what?"
Worst jokes:74% of people awarded these the lowest ratings:
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.
Why are chickens considered good employees? Because they work around the cluck.
Males vs females:Huge differences emerged between the jokes most favoured by males and females. Males? top jokes involved aggression, putting women down and sexual innuendo. For example, the following jokes were all loved by men and disliked by women:
While robbing a home, a burglar hears someone say, "Jesus is watching you." To his relief, he realizes it is just a parrot mimicking something it had heard. The burglar asks the parrot, "What?s your name?" The parrot says, "Moses." The burglar goes on to ask, "What kind of person names their parrot Moses?" The parrot replies, "The same kind of person that names his Rottweiler Jesus.
This guy runs home and bursts in yelling, "Pack your bags sweetheart, I?ve just won the lottery, all six numbers!" She says, "Oh wonderful! Should I pack for the beach or the mountains?" He replies, "I don?t care?.just pack and shove off!"
A guy walked in to a psychiatrist?s office wearing only cling-film underpants. The psychiatrist said "Well, I can clearly see you?re nuts."
In contrast, females preferred jokes involving word plays. The following jokes came top of the ratings for females but were disliked by men:
A man said, "I'm going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library." I thought "That's a turn-up for the books."
A man had a dog called Minton. One day Minton ate two shuttlecocks. When the owner found out he said bad Minton!!
A man walks into a bar with a piece of tarmac under his arm. He says to the barman, "A pint for me and one for the road."
"These findings reflect fundamental differences in the ways in which males and females use humour" said Dr Wiseman. "Males use humour to appear superior to others, whilst women are more linguistically skilled and prefer word-puns."
Nationality:It was possible to carry out a preliminary analysis of data from different nations. The UK appears to have retained its liking for
?Carry On? style humour, its top joke was as follows:
A man goes to the doctor and says "Doctor, there's a piece of lettuce sticking out of my bottom." The doctor asks him to drop his trousers and examines him. The man asks, "Is it serious, doctor?" and the doctor replies, "I'm sorry to tell you but this is just the tip of the iceberg."
It was also possible to rank the top ten countries in terms of how funny they found the jokes - perhaps surprisingly, Germany heads the list! Canada came last. These are the percentage of joke rated as ?very funny? by each country.
Germany 35%
France 34%
Belgium 33%
Australia 32%
Finland 31%
Sweden 31%
UK 30%
Norway 30%
New Zealand 29%
USA 27%
Canada 26%
"This is an intriguing finding," remarked Dr Wiseman, "and we will be carrying out more research to discover exactly what is going on here."
The jokes obtaining the highest ratings from Germanywere:
Why is television called a medium? It is neither rare nor well-done.
To tell the weather: Go to your back door and look for the dog. If the dog is at the door and he is wet, it's probably raining. But if the dog is standing there really soaking wet, it is probably raining really hard. If the dog's fur looks like it's been rubbed the wrong way, it's probably windy. If the dog has snow on his back, it's probably snowing. Of course, to be able to tell the weather like this, you have to leave the dog outside all the time, especially if you expect bad weather.
Sincerely, The CAT
The top jokes rated by each country:
French
"You're a high-priced lawyer! If I give you $500, will you answer two questions for me?"
"Absolutely! What's the second question?"
Belgium
Well, you see, there are basically three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count and those that can't.
Australia
A man left for a vacation to Jamaica. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it in from memory. Unfortunately, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor dead. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen: Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Your Loving Husband. P.S. Sure is hot down here.
Finland
A new teacher was trying to make use of her psychology courses. She started her class by saying, "Everyone who thinks they're stupid, stand up!" After a few seconds, Little Johnny stood up. The teacher said, "Do you think you're stupid, Little Johnny? Little Johnny replied, "No, ma'am, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself."
Sweden
A guy phones the local hospital and yells "You've gotta send help! My wife's in labour!" The nurse says, "Calm down. Is this her first child?" He replies, "No! This is her husband!"
Norway
As a funeral train passes by a golf course, a golfer on one of the greens stops, stands at attention with hat held over his heart as the hearse goes by. Then he goes back to lining up his putt. His playing partner remarks how that was the nicest gesture he'd ever seen, to show such respect for the dead. The first golfer sinks his putt and says, "Well, she was a good wife for sixteen years."
New Zealand
A priest conducts a service in a church "The person who puts the most in the church collection box can choose three hymns" he says.The collection box comes back to him after being filled up and he finds that someone has donated a thousand pounds "who has donated a thousand pounds?" he asks. A women raises her hand . The priest invites her to the front and tells her to choose three hymns. Pointing at the three most handsome men in the church she says "I'll have him, him and him"
USA
A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911. He gasps to the operator, "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator, in a calm soothing voice says, "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says, "OK, now what?"
Canada
Q. What do you call a woman who can balance 4 pints of beer on her head?
A. Beatrix
Computer vs humans:When the experiment was launched ten of the UK?s best-known scientists submitted a joke each to the website. These were rated by the public together with five jokes that had been generated by a computer. Four of the computer-generated jokes faired very badly. In fact the third worst joke rated in the experiment so far was one created by a computer:
- What kind of line has sixteen balls? A pool queue.
However, one joke did relatively well, beating over 300 human jokes:
- What kind of murderer has fibre? A cereal killer.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science
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