World’s oldest joke is about female flatulence
9:04AM ON
08/06/2008
BY
Ari
In what amounts to a pretty unsurprising find, human cultures have been fascinated by gender norms, and more importantly flatulence, since the dawn of civilization. Thus spake Reuters:
The world’s oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests toilet humor was as popular with the ancients as it is today.
It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”
I kinda don’t get it. Does cuneiform writing somehow produce a lot of double negatives?
August 6th, 2008 at 9:14AM
JOE BERNSTEIN Says:
is she farted in the bathtub she could be a motorboat
[Reply]
August 6th, 2008 at 10:43AM
Eric Smith Says:
I think it loses something in the translation. Where’s Don Rickles when you need him?
[Reply]