<![CDATA[What’s So Funny?]]>Benchley said there was no end to which humorless people wouldn’t go to analyze humor. On the other hand, the research can be both funny and illuminating. Muffin jokes and all. (Free subscription required. If you don’t like registering, there’s always bugmenot.)
“It was a small conference attended by some of the most senior researchers in the field,” he recalls. “When they heard me, a lowly graduate student, tell the muffin joke, there was a really uncomfortable silence. You could hear crickets.”