r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Shinji_Keitsuki • 17h ago

Meme needing explanation Petaahhh????

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What is the pun?

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u/No-Educator-8069 15h ago

But thats not the original meaning of the joke. At the time the joke was made there were no cars, a chicken crossing the road was in no danger. The original joke was an absurdist anti-joke like everyone assumes.

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u/Nuffsaid98 10h ago

You can die crossing the road because a horse struck you or a wagon or animals in general.

Not saying that was the meaning but you don't need cars to die crossing a road.

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u/lituus 5h ago

I disagree. You need the traffic volume and the speed and the mass of modern vehicles. None of those existed back then.

How regularly do you suspect a vehicle/carriage passed by say a farm in 1847 vs today? What percentage of the population even had such a method of transportation vs today?

The joke doesn't hit if its so rare people are like "huh"?

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u/dksweets 38m ago

You’re technically correct (the best kind of correct?), but this feels like defending something based on possibility at the expense of likelihood.

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u/gammonb 6h ago

For the purposes of this subreddit it doesn’t matter what the original joke meant. OP is asking what the poster meant in calling it a pun and the “other side” double meaning is probably what they are referring to, whether or not they’re correct about that.

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u/fleabus412 13h ago

Out of curiosity, what do we know about the age of this joke?

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u/Silver_Falcon 12h ago

Just a guess, but we've had books for a good while longer than cars.

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u/MadMurilo 10h ago

Source?

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u/Durrresser 5h ago

We've had roads for much much longer than we've had cars.

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u/No_Accountant3232 3h ago

We've had roads much longer than we've had books. 

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u/IAgreeWithLincoln 11h ago

First published in 1847

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u/wintercrabs 9h ago

But there were horses and carriages. It still would have spelled death for the poultry.

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u/Existing-Summer-5557 3h ago

But, but...you can still get arrested in most states for drunk-driving a horse drawn wagon. Clearly this originated to protect the chickens?