World Best Anecdote Determined

An amusing Internet experiment was held in Britain which was to determine the world best anecdote. The experiment lasted for a year, and people had to rate different jokes and anecdotes given in English in the network of the Internet experiment. The experiment was organized by psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire Richard Weisman. As a result of the experiment, about 2 million responses to 40,000 jokes were received. Participants of the experiment were offered to rate the jokes according to the five-point scale, some kind of a laughter gauge. The joke rated as the world best was submitted by a 31-year-old psychiatrist from Manchester, here it is.

Two hunters in the forest. Suddenly one of them felt very bad, his breathing stopped and eyes became glassy. The first man takes his mobiles phone and calls the ambulance. “My friend is dead! What should I do? – “Calm down,” was the response, “I will help you. First of all, make sure that your friend is actually dead.” The doctor can hear nothing at all for some time, then goes a loud shot, and the man starts speaking over the phone again. He says: “Yes, now I’m sure he is dead. What should I do next?”

It is strange but Germans, despite the stereotype that they are having no sense of humor at all, admitted almost all jokes represented in the experiment as funny. Play of words is the best what people from Great Britain, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand like about jokes most of all.