I hereby guarantee that the quotes expressed below are entirely ficticious. I also make no claim to be the author of any of this stuff!
This often asked question has sparked serious debate across the globe for a long, long time as the following explanations will atest.
Here endith the list!
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
I went to the other side because their was a hot chick on the other side.
It had the desire to travel and find it's place in America. He had the urge to be someplace else.
I told him to
For the greater good.
It was a historical inevitability.
A good looking hen on the other side.
So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for who among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.
Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas. Return to list
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. Return to list
The chicken didn't exactly cross the road. As of 1994, something like 99.8% of all US chickens reaching maturity that year had spent 82% of their lives in confinement. The living conditions in mostchickencoops break every international law ever written, and some, particularly the ones for chickens bound for slaughter, border on inhumane. My point is, they had no chance to cross the road (unless you count the ride to the supermarket). Even if one or two have crossed roads for whatever reason, most never get a chance. Of course, this is not what we are told. Instead, we see chickens happily dancing around on Sesame Street and Foster Farms commercials where chickens are not only crossing roads, but driving trucks. (Incidentally, Foster Farms is owned by the same people who own the Foster Freeze chain, a subsidiary of the dairy industry.) Anyway, ... [Chomsky continues for 32 pages. For the full text of his answer, contact Onanian Press.] Return to list
Give me 10 minutes with the chicken and I'll find out. Return to list
Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take. Return to list
42. Return to list
Because if you gaze too long across the road, the road gazes also across you. Return to list
National Security was at stake. Return to list
Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will. Return to list
Edgar will find out! Or, uh, we could put, uh, Liddy on it. Liddy. I worry about Liddy sometimes. Remember when we assigned him to figure out which 1 of those [expletive deleted] passenger pigeons had been leaking campaign secrets? Return to list
The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being. Return to list
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road. Return to list
The possibility of crossing was encoded into the objects chicken and road, and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence. Return to list
Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference. Return to list
To actualize its potential. Return to list
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature. Return to list
It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian bipedwith the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to Homo sapiens pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence. Return to list
The Fish. Return to list
It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees. Return to list
Because it could not stop for death. Return to list
For fun. Return to list
It didn't cross the road; it transcended it. Return to list
The eternal hen-principle made it do it. Return to list
To die. In the rain. Return to list
We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast. Return to list
Out of custom and habit. Return to list
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it. Return to list
'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason. Return to list
What road? Return to list
I forget. Return to list
The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity. Return to list
You tell me. Return to list
If it was a white, Aryan chicken, it was because it was its destiny to seek lebensraum in the historical vaterland. If it was 1 of those Rhode Island Communists, it was a cowardly act of betrayal of der volk, for which it will be made to pay. Return to list
To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life. Return to list
The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated. Return to list
Because, in this patriarchial state, for the last 4 centuries, men have applied their principles of justice in determining how chickens should be cared for, their language has demeaned the identity of the chicken, their technonogy and trucks have decided how and where chickens will be distributed, their science has become the basis for what chickens eat, their sense of humor has provided the framework for this joke, their art and film have given us our perception of chicken life, their lust for flesh has has made the chicken the most consumed animal in the US, and their legal system has left the chicken with no other recourse. Return to list
Eh? Return to list
It is possible that there is a sociobiological explanation for it, but we have been deluged in recent years with sociobiological stories despite the fact that we have little direct evidence about the genetics of behavior, and we do not know how to obtain it for the specific behaviors that figure most prominently in sociobiological speculation. Return to list
I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelet. Return to list
It was coming home to roost. Return to list
To show the possum it could be done. Return to list
It is one of the challenging problems of our time, isn't it? And, altho we have known of this problem for many years, nobody has ever taken it seriously enough to really feel the chicken's pain. Clearly we need to move forward on this issue in a measured, humane way, bearing in mind that the federal government can't be all things to all creatures, but that, in the final analysis, it is the Constitution of this great land of ours which guarantees freedom of action, within prudent limits, for all of us. God bless you, and thanks for asking. Return to list
How should I know? Get that microphone out of my face! Return to list
And what a long, strange trip it's been. Return to list