Why DID the chicken cross the road?

[TPFKA@W]

This was posted on a blog I read regularly. The woman is a member of MENSA and is mentally on a different planet than I. Thought I would run this past the braniacs (and those otherwise blessed) on here. Feedback please, is this accurate or over thought, or is this something most people got out of the joke.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side.


I've been hearing that for nigh onto seventy decades, and today I discovered I never got it!

I always thought it was one of those "duh" things. Like, "of course to get to the other side of the road, why does anyone cross the road, if you were expecting any different reason for crossing the road you were overthinking it, duh. Gotcha."

Note I always mentally added the "of the road". Which, you will note, is not in the original. Is never in the original. Which sort of indicates to me that everyone else in the world got it. Except me.

It never occurred to me that it was ... a pun? A double entendre?

It never occurred to me that a chicken who attempts to cross a road is suicidal, and that "other" and "side" can be capitalized.

I know I tend to be much too literal, but for almost seventy years of chickens?

Am I alone here? When did you "get it"?

[If you ever tell this joke to small children, for their sakes, please explain it to them. Don't let them live in ignorance.]
.

[Lord Jim]

nigh onto seventy decades

for almost seventy years

Yeah, well she may be a Smarty Pants about some things, but her math could use a little work...

[TPFKA@W]

Thank you MR. Pendant. Do you have any actual input into the topic or are you just going to drive-by smartassed remark?

[oldr_n_wsr]

The pun (or whatever one wants to call it) relys on the placing of human thought patterns onto a chicken. People cross the road for a variety of reasons (it's the way home, want to see the person on that side of the street, etc) but most/all of those reasons can boil down to the desire to get to the other side.
for the rest of this let it be known that I have no knowledge of the inner workings of the chicken brain and is just pure speculation on my part

A chicken, or any animal, operates on instinct. It neither knows nor cares nor has any knowledge of a road. All it knows that it is going from point A (this side of the road) to point B (the other side of the road). It might, in it's thought process, realise the texture difference of the surface it is walking on from this side to the road to the other side but beyond that, I don't think it realises that it just crossed a road.

Now why did it go from point A to point B (aka ones side of the road to another) is known only to the chicken. There might be food at point B, it's looking for food as there is no food at point A, it's mate might be at point B. Mostly, I would think it's looking for some kind of sustinance as that is what is hardwired into animals brains (instincts?). Food/water is probably number one with procreation number two.

Now if both those needs were just satisfied at point A, I venture to guess the chicken was just looking for a place to relax and have a cigarette.
just couldn't resist adding that last line in, up until then I was trying to give a thoughtful answer. Sorry

But joking aside, the gist of the pun is giving chickens the thought patterns of people and thus the myriad of reasons people cross the road.

[Crackpot]

It is my experience that every member of MENSA is not as smart as they think they are.

[Lord Jim]

Thank you MR. Pendant.

That would be "Mr. Pedant"...

Do you have any actual input into the topic

Oh very well...

I think her interpretation is clever and witty but incorrect...(In fact I get the impression from her tone that it's being presented sort of -tongue-in-cheek)

I don't think the meaning is really about chickens or roads at all...

I've always seen that little riddle as basically an allegory intended to teach the lesson, "frequently the simplest explanation is the correct one"...

[Joe Guy]

Thank you MR. Pendant. Do you have any actual input into the topic or are you just going to drive-by smartassed remark?

[Joe Guy]

Why did @W ask the question?

To get to the other side?

Could it be that she wants to reach out to someone she has placed on ignore? Someone on the other side of Plan B in her world?

She knows this is exactly the kind of thread that would get a response from me. She can't help it.

It's human nature taking its course.

It's kismet.

The chicken represents a person who is trying to get from here to there and wants us to think that it's crossing the road for no reason. The real motive is opening up communication with someone she misses dearly but wants us to think is nothing more than a road she has crossed and will never look back.

Or not....

Probably not.

[oldr_n_wsr]

That is so deeeep

[Lord Jim]

It seems to me that if the actual intent of the riddle had been what the mathematically challenged lady in the OP suggests, that rather than :

"to get to the other side"

The answer would have been:

"to break on through to the other side"....

[Rick]

I'm decidedly NOT one of the smarties here, however if we follow her reasoning the chicken never made it to the other side.

The question being; why did the chicken CROSS the road.

If it made it to "her" other side it failed to make the CROSSING, but it would have been the 1st to the scene of the accident

[Joe Guy]

Since we're anthropomorphizing chickens, why not the road?

The question could be interpreted as wanting to know why the chicken made the road cross and the answer could be because the chicken enjoyed making the road mad.

[Rick]

Hey Hey I'm not anthropomorphizing anything

[Lord Jim]

Hey Hey I'm not anthropomorphizing anything

Says the guy with a gorilla for an Avatar...

[Rick]

Sue has the Gorilla mine is a Macaque, just sayin

[Rick]

Because Poe wrote on both, wait different thread...

[Lord Jim]

Sue has the Gorilla mine is a Macaque, just sayin

Oh great, just what this place needs, another Mr. Pendant....

[Rick]

[Joe Guy]

Rick & Sue....

[dgs49]

Nah, I don't buy the "other side" meaning. The question concerns the chicken CROSSING the road (i.e., making it to the other side, intact).

Now if the question were, "Why did the chicken walk onto the road?" Maybe, "...to get to the Other Side."