Chickenology Encyclopedia

Intro | New | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L
M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

© 1995-99, Ervin Nemeth.  All rights reserved.
Republication and commercial use of our pages is expressly prohibited.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Why do chickens cross roads?
The most comprehensive listing on the Web (or so it should be).

D

Salvador Dali:

• The Fish.

Damocles:

• There was a sword hanging over his head.

Rodney Dangerfield:

• I get no respect. I've been crossing the road since 1989.

Stephanie Daniels:

• It was the turtle's day off.

Darwin:

• It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.
• Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.

Commander Data:

• I do not know. Although I have compared all of my 437 billion data points relating to chickens and roads, there is no positive correlation between the two.
• The chicken, in observing that it was on the opposite side of the 20th century Terran paved roadway, was aware that its immediate goal should have been to traverse the distance without interception by an kind of combustion-propelled personal transport vehicle, but I am unclear as to why any kind of domesticated fowl should desire to perambulate upon a conveyance normally reserved for the usage of... yes, sir.

David:

• Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of chickens...

Dax (Star Trek):

• To get to the other side. Kurzon might have disagreed with me, Tobin I'm sure wouldn't have had a clue, and then there's...
• When you remember so many previous lives, it's so boring to stay on one side of the road all the time.

James Dean:

• Life is so short. It wanted to experience as much as possible in as short a time as possible.
• To prove he wasn't chicken.

WFTL's Dante DeAngelis:

• Now let me get this straight. You're saying a chicken crossed the road, and now YOU'RE asking ME, "WHY?"

Paul de Man:

• The chicken did not really cross the road because one side and the other are not really opposites in the first place.
• So no one would find out it wrote for a collaborationist. Belgian newspaper during the early years of World War II.

Delenn (Babylon 5):

• Valen asked the chicken, "Will you follow me into storm, into darkness, into fire, into death?" And the chicken said... "Yes."

Delta Airlines:

• Crossing makes the going great.

W. Edwards Demming:

• But is one chicken crossing one road of statistical importance? Only once we have established an historical baseline of chickens with respect to roads, with calculated upper and lower control limits, can we make that determination.

Thomas De Quincy:

• Because it ran out of opium.

Arthur Dent:

• Are you sure the chicken is from Beetelgeuse, and not from Gilford after all?

Jacques Derrida:

• Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!
• What is the difference? The chicken was merely deferring from one side of the road to other. And how do we get the idea of the chicken in the first place? Does it exist outside of language?
• The question admits of limitless answers, since there is no one logocentric strategy of discourse that takes primacy over all others.

Rene Descartes:

• The chicken was merely a machine and was crossing due to the deterministic nature of the universe.
• It had sufficient reason to believe it was dreaming anyway.

Thomas E. Dewey:

• It was time for a change.

Dial Soap:

• Aren't you glad he crossed? Don't you wish everyone did?

Princess Diana:

• To get away from the royal rooster.
• The paparazzi chased it across.

Emily Dickinson:

• Because it could not stop for death.
• I've always preferred chickens to people, for they know, but do not tell.

Dilbert:

• I hate it when the title gives away the plot!
• To establish asynchronous file transfer protocols.

Diogenes:

• It was looking for an honest bird.

Celin Dion:

• The chicken is on its journey through eternity.

Walt Disney:

• It was a Mickey Mouse idea.

Bob Dole:

• Do you know that before that chicken had gotten across the road, its cellular phone was ringing and there was a lawyer on the other end asking if it would like to sue the city for not putting up a traffic light.
• Bob Dole says "To get to the other side."

Gaetano Donizetti:

• She first saw the light in the camp of the brave grenadiers.

John Donne:

• Ask me not for whom the chickens cross. They cross for thee.

C. J. Doppler:

• For its effect on passer-bys.

Robert Dornan:

• They were illegals stealing the election from a real American.

Dorothy:

• Toto, I have a feeling it isn't in Kansas any more.

Fyodor Dostoevsky:

• To be struck by a passing car. The most meaningful reality in life is individual freedom, and the supreme expression of individual freedom is suicide.

Frederick Douglass:

• Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are like chicken who want the roar of the road without the roar of its many lanes of traffic.

Count Dracula:

• The chicken needed fresh blood.

Gul Dukat (Star Trek):

• Well, that's a very interesting question...I'm sure we can work out some kind of arrangement to obtain that information that will be to everyone's satisfaction.

Bishop of Durham:

• Or was it the egg? We can never be sure. Or can we?

Bob Dylan:

• How many roads must a chicken travel down, before they call him a man?
• She walks just like a chicken walks,
  yeah, she squawks just like a chicken squawks,
  oh she hen-pecks just like a chicken pecks,
  but she crosses the road like a little chick.

Your assistance in updating this page would be most appreciated.
Please send your Chickenology Encyclopedia entries to:

ervin@unforgettable.com