the funniest joke in the world:
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them suddenly collapses. He stops breathing and his eyes roll back in his head. Panicked, the other man whips out his cell phone and calls emergency services.
He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?"
The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: "Take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard.
The hunter's voice comes back on the line, "OK, now what?"
Ok, that may not be the funniest joke you've ever heard, but according to a 2002 "scientific" survey, the above came out on top as the funniest overall joke across cultures. That means that whether you're American, British, Indian, or African, you probably find the joke somewhat humorous. But why?
One thing that you'll notice is that the order to "make sure he's dead" was executed in a completely different manner than one would predict. That is, you had one expectation, but the answer was something very different. Actually, most jokes follow this simple formula in one way or another. The reason why this is so reveals a lot about the way our brains are wired.
But before I get into that, I want to share a brief story about an experience I had on the NYC subway a few years back. Now, as anyone who is accustomed to taking mass transit knows, there are many interesting encounters one can have when you cram masses of unrelated people into one place. This isn't one of "those" stories, however. In fact, the story is a bit boring and is something we've all experienced many times over. But at this particular moment, it led to an epiphany for me.