Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" is one of the oldest and most famous joke riddles still in use in the English language. The most common answer to this riddle is "To get to the other side."

Its first known appearance in print occurred in 1847 in The Knickerbocker, a New York monthly magazine.

When asked at the end of a series of other riddles, whose answers are clever, obscure, and tricky, this answer's obviousness and straight-forwardness becomes part of the humor.

Some psychologists believe the riddle's humor comes from the fact that its answer is expected to be funny, but is not.This riddle's origin is obscure.

KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other side.

PLATO: For the greater good.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability.

TIMOTHY LEARY: Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

RONALD REAGAN: I forget.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

HIPPOCRATES: Because of an excess of phlegm in its pancreas.

ANDERSEN CONSULTING: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting ,in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Anderson consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN: The road, you see, represents the black man. The chicken `crossed' the black man in order to trample him and keep him down.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

MOSES: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, ``Thou shalt cross the road.'' And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.

MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

JERRY SEINFELD: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES: Our soon-to-be-released Chicken '98 will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

OLIVER STONE: The question is not, ``Why did the chicken cross the road?'' Rather, it is, ``Who was crossing the road at the sametime, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?''

DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

BUDDHA: Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON: The chicken did not cross the road... it transcended it.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER: It was an instinctive maneuver, the chicken obviously didn't see the road until he had already started to cross.

COLONEL SANDERS (Famed for Kentucky Fried Chicken): I missed one?

PHYSICIST: Because the chicken's momentum had a positive component towards the other side of the road.

QUANTUM PHYSICIST: Because you measured its momentum too precisely.

MATHEMATICIAN: Because of the intermediate values theorem.

ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRIST: Well, consider a faithfully flat etale coherent sheaf...

C PROGRAMMER: cross_road() was called from get_other_side()

C++ PROGRAMMER: chicken->CrossRoad() was called from chicken->GetOtherSide()

RMS: The licenses for most roads are designed to take away your chicken's freedom to cross it. By contrast, the GALLUS Road Public Licence...

GARY LARSON: ``THE OTHER SIDE - Why do you need a reason?''

ENS STUDENT: Contretest.

OMAR KHAYYÁM:
I sent my Chicken across the Road,
Some Letter of that Other-side to download:
And by and by my Chicken return'd to me,
And answer'd ``I Myself am Princess and Toad:''

MARKETING DIVISION OF MICROSOFT CORPORATION: Where does your chicken want to go today?

MARVIN: The other side is just as dull as this one. Don't talk to me about chickens.

ARTHUR DENT: Why did the chicken cross the road? 42? No, that doesn't make sense.

GOETHE: Es irrt das Huhn, solang es die Straße übergeht.

HARI SELDON: It's part of the Plan.

HAMLET:
To cross, or not to cross, that is the question: -
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous side;
Or to take arms against a road of troubles,
And by crossing end them?

THERMODYNAMIST: Because the pressure of chickens was greater on this side of the road, and the chicken's crossing made the entropy greater.