Study: A bad joke might endanger the teller

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Nancy Bell left a Washington State University applied linguist uses a key as a prop as she asks Jenai Uhrich a freshman from Ravensdale Wash. a deliberately bad joke while Bell demonstrates how she and her assistants conducted research into failed hu ...
Nancy Bell, left, a Washington State University applied linguist, uses a key as a prop as she asks Jenai Uhrich, a freshman from Ravensdale, Wash., a deliberately bad joke while Bell demonstrates how she and her assistants conducted research into failed humor, Monday, Aug. 18, 2008 on the WSU Pullman campus. (AP Photo/Dean Hare)
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(AP) -- There's a reason comedians call it "dying on stage." Research by a Washington State University linguist found that people who tell bad jokes often endure an astonishing outpouring of hostility from the listeners.


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