The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Even if it doesn't, that's not going to stop British science from trying to find out! As reported by Reuters:
A British scientist has launched a quest for the world's funniest joke.
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from Hertfordshire University, said on Wednesday that the year-long, Internet-based search should throw light on whether men and women, the young and old, and specific nationalities find different jokes funny.
"It is an attempt to delve into the psychology of humour," he told a science conference in Glasgow in Scotland.
"Are there certain types of joke being submitted by a certain country and are there some which are found funny across the world -- a kind of universal joke?"
People can log on to the experiment's Website at www.laughlab.co.uk to submit jokes and enter a few personal details before giving their verdict on a sample of other jokes.
All submissions must be in English.
After six months, jokes deemed to be the funniest will be recorded by a professional comedian with a variety of punchline timings to arrive at what -- theoretically -- should be the killer comic formula.
The site's database is already stocked with a variety of starter jokes: What kind of murderer has fibre? A serial killer; What sort of pig should you avoid at a party? A wild boar.
But Wiseman hopes these will be overtaken by a flood of 1,000 or more wisecracks in the first 24 hours of the experiment.
Smutty and offensive jokes, however funny, will not make it to the final reckoning.
"A student will come in every morning and edit out the rude ones," Wiseman said. "But it will also be interesting to see what sort of people submit those sort of jokes."
Volunteers will listen to the final jokes while undergoing a scan, to see how their brains react.
The results should help studies into brain damage and thought processes since "getting" a joke requires a number of complex cognitive processes, Wiseman told a conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
For instance, people with damage to the right-hand frontal cortex find it difficult to understand many jokes or often laugh at the wrong punchline.
A British scientist has launched a quest for the world's funniest joke.
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from Hertfordshire University, said on Wednesday that the year-long, Internet-based search should throw light on whether men and women, the young and old, and specific nationalities find different jokes funny.
"It is an attempt to delve into the psychology of humour," he told a science conference in Glasgow in Scotland.
"Are there certain types of joke being submitted by a certain country and are there some which are found funny across the world -- a kind of universal joke?"
People can log on to the experiment's Website at www.laughlab.co.uk to submit jokes and enter a few personal details before giving their verdict on a sample of other jokes.
All submissions must be in English.
After six months, jokes deemed to be the funniest will be recorded by a professional comedian with a variety of punchline timings to arrive at what -- theoretically -- should be the killer comic formula.
The site's database is already stocked with a variety of starter jokes: What kind of murderer has fibre? A serial killer; What sort of pig should you avoid at a party? A wild boar.
But Wiseman hopes these will be overtaken by a flood of 1,000 or more wisecracks in the first 24 hours of the experiment.
Smutty and offensive jokes, however funny, will not make it to the final reckoning.
"A student will come in every morning and edit out the rude ones," Wiseman said. "But it will also be interesting to see what sort of people submit those sort of jokes."
Volunteers will listen to the final jokes while undergoing a scan, to see how their brains react.
The results should help studies into brain damage and thought processes since "getting" a joke requires a number of complex cognitive processes, Wiseman told a conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
For instance, people with damage to the right-hand frontal cortex find it difficult to understand many jokes or often laugh at the wrong punchline.
Page:
Good points made there. I think it might be more appropriate to have different categorys for different cultures, or something similar.
Anyone know the website address of this experiment?
Anyone know the website address of this experiment?
Erm intersting idea, that there is potentially the worlds funniest joke. Seems to me that humour is too based on complext cultural understandings for it to be universal. I'm sure the whole world has versions of the English man, Irish man etc. Also Knock,Knocks.But again the answers are going to be culturally specific.
You only have to look at the difference between American and British humour. "Two countries divided by a common language" as George Bernard Shaw said.
I worked in the states for a bit. And whilst its a cliche to say they are all "stupid" they do have a different sense of humour to us. Sarcasm, irony etc are a foreign language to them. Again not all of them, Simpsons, Frasier etc proof that. But everyday sarcasm, p*** taking, irony is fairly rare. There were akward occassions when people were not entirely clear if I was taking the p*** or not. Not to mention that hundreds of references to British popular culture and humour they simply hadn't heard off.
Having said all that I think the idea of them looking at how the brain deals with humour is interesting. People with autism - a nuerological condition that is manifested in various ways but is classically seen as an inability to deal with emotion/tactile sensations etc usually have problems with humour. If this experiment could throw any light on that it would have served a purpose.
If the student with the job of editing smutty jokes gets sick of it I'm sure there would be plenty of other takers. Although thinking about it its probably like getting stuck with the amateur comedian at the local who corners you and laughs way too loudly at his own jokes.
You only have to look at the difference between American and British humour. "Two countries divided by a common language" as George Bernard Shaw said.
I worked in the states for a bit. And whilst its a cliche to say they are all "stupid" they do have a different sense of humour to us. Sarcasm, irony etc are a foreign language to them. Again not all of them, Simpsons, Frasier etc proof that. But everyday sarcasm, p*** taking, irony is fairly rare. There were akward occassions when people were not entirely clear if I was taking the p*** or not. Not to mention that hundreds of references to British popular culture and humour they simply hadn't heard off.
Having said all that I think the idea of them looking at how the brain deals with humour is interesting. People with autism - a nuerological condition that is manifested in various ways but is classically seen as an inability to deal with emotion/tactile sensations etc usually have problems with humour. If this experiment could throw any light on that it would have served a purpose.
If the student with the job of editing smutty jokes gets sick of it I'm sure there would be plenty of other takers. Although thinking about it its probably like getting stuck with the amateur comedian at the local who corners you and laughs way too loudly at his own jokes.
Analysing Humour?
That's like trying to tickle yourself, impossible and would appear to ruin it.
But I do know the funniest joke this week.
Except I've forgotten it because it's 4:30 and I've been awake for almost 37hrs straight now and starting to feel it.
That's like trying to tickle yourself, impossible and would appear to ruin it.
But I do know the funniest joke this week.
Except I've forgotten it because it's 4:30 and I've been awake for almost 37hrs straight now and starting to feel it.
That one student is probably the one that's being monitored...
Venom, I remember that sketch as well.
If I remember rightly, they had to get individual people to translate 1 word each so they wouldn't die while translating.
Classic!
If I remember rightly, they had to get individual people to translate 1 word each so they wouldn't die while translating.
Classic!
Worlds funniest joke?
I'm getting flashbacks of a monty python sketch, anyone remember it?
The guy who writes it dies of laughter shortly after completing it, as do the next few people who enter his office and read it. I believe it culminates with waves of copies of the joke being dropped by bomber planes to unsuspecting german soldiers. (Naturally the translator died of laughter shortly after translating it to german)
I'm getting flashbacks of a monty python sketch, anyone remember it?
The guy who writes it dies of laughter shortly after completing it, as do the next few people who enter his office and read it. I believe it culminates with waves of copies of the joke being dropped by bomber planes to unsuspecting german soldiers. (Naturally the translator died of laughter shortly after translating it to german)
The part I like is getting 1000 jokes in a day and expecting one student to handle that load! I think the backlog will take a while to process.
Somehow I don't think they'd accept it...
Wòókiee Møn§†€R wrote:
That's a cracker!"
Not bad, is it?
:-)
Shall I submit it to this funniest joke thingy?
That's a cracker!"
Not bad, is it?
:-)
Shall I submit it to this funniest joke thingy?
Page: