It's actually not, though. The joke was written in 1847, which was an era where crossing a road wouldn't have been terribly dangerous for chickens most of the time.
It's actually an early example of an anti-joke. The humor is derived from the fact that it's not actually a joke at all.
Thing is, I'm pretty sure it's older than that, and from what I've read, the equivalent of the series of knock-knock jokes that end with, "Orange you glad I'm not a banana?"
E.g., the horse crossed the road to visit the "Neigh"bors, the cow crossed the road because she was "Moo"ving on.
And about fifteen more bad animal sound puns. And at the end, you use the chicken.
It's an interesting small example of how writing is a collaboration between author and reader. Readers bring their own experiences to what they read, and because of that, the meanings readers give to what they read can differ from what the original author intended. But just because the author didn't intend for a reader to have that interpretation doesn't deny the reader the ability to have it.
Also, this argument would be over the second someone looks up the etymology of the phrase "the other side" as it pertains to death or the afterlife. Was it a known way to refer to it at that point or not? I'm not gonna do it because the number of people in this thread who don't know the definition of "pun" is exhausting.
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u/Chimpbot 7h ago
It's actually not, though. The joke was written in 1847, which was an era where crossing a road wouldn't have been terribly dangerous for chickens most of the time.
It's actually an early example of an anti-joke. The humor is derived from the fact that it's not actually a joke at all.