In a 2007 Vanity Fair article Christopher Hitchens asked: Why are men, taken on average and as a whole, funnier than women?
在2007年《名利场》杂志的一篇文章中，克里斯多弗·希钦斯提出一个问题:为什么男人无论是平均而言还是总体上都比女人更有幽默感？

Well a recent study finds that men might have a tiny edge over women in producing humor but the gap is too small to account for the stereotype.
最近的一项研究发现，男人在制造幽默方面或许超过女人一点点，但差距如此细微，不能证明这一成见。
Scientists had 16 male and 16 female subjects write funny captions for 20 New Yorker magazine cartoons in 45 minutes. Then the captions were rated by a different group of 34 male and 47 female subjects.
科学家让16位男士和16位女士在45分钟之内，为20张《纽约客》杂志上的卡通画写出幽默的配图文字。然后这些配图文字被送到另外一组34位男士和47位女士来打分。
Men’s captions rated higher on average than women’s captions. But only by a mere 0.11 points out of perfect score of 5.0. The study is published in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
男士对配图文字打分的平均值比女士高，但是仅仅高出0.11分(满分为5.0)。这项研究的结果发表在期刊《心理规律学报与评论》上。
The researchers also found that unfunny captions were more often wrongly attributed to women and funny ones misattributed to men.
研究人员也发现，不幽默的配图文字通常被错认为是女士所写，而有趣的通常被错认为是男士所写。
Given the tiny edge men held, why does the stereotype have a strong hold? Maybe men just make more attempts at humor. For example, fewer women win the New Yorker caption contests, but fewer enter. When women do enter, however, they tend to win with fewer attempts compared to men.
抛开男人在幽默感上的细微差距不看，那为什么很多人还是有成见呢？也许男人只是在幽默上有更多的尝试。例如,极少数女士在《纽约客》配图文字竞赛中胜出,因为很少人参加这一活动。当女士积极参加时，那她们会凭借着比男士少的尝试去赢得比赛。
Which may give women the last laugh.
什么能让女人笑到最后呢？