Do any of you have some good riddles? We haven't posted riddles for awhile now.

Here are 2 that my friend sent me:

1. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every sack had seven cats. Every cat had seven kits. Kit, cat, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?

2. What kind of a riddle is full of holes?

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Do any of you have some good riddles? We haven't posted riddles for awhile now.

Here are 2 that my friend sent me:

1. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every sack had seven cats. Every cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?

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Permit me to augment:
As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks. Every sack had seven cats. Every cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?

Just one thing. "Kits" are meant to be kittens.

An Oldie-but-goodie :-)

Similarly:
You have one thing in your pocket.
You put one more thing in your pocket.
You now have one thing in your pocket.
What do you have in your pocket?

(This was a favorite when I was a kid.)


Also, an original one I stumbled over while looking for something else. There aren't that many words in the English language that contain two Q's but one of them describes yours truly. What am I? (If anyone can pull this one out without resorting to OneLook or some other site, I'd be mildly amazed.) Answer Monday.

J'ai Qs

Lessee, now.

Once I was a Roman boat, but that's not English.

Later, another of me was a harpooner on the Pequod, but that's a different story.

In the National Puzzlers' League there is a gentlemen who goes by the nom of "Qaqaq." It's pronounced "Kay-kack." There's a story behind that too, but I'm not privy to it.

If I imbibe bourbon or Scotch, does that make me a "liquorquaffer"? (I know, it's a stretch.)

And if I have a pair of pigtails, do I have two queues? Or is down-the-middle-of-the-back-of-the-head an essential part of the definition?


kapokketapokketa

And as for pockets - not sure what you have in mind, but if I had a hole in my pocket, and then I put another hole in my pocket, then I wouldn't have ANYTHING in my pocket any more!

Are hyphens permitted? If you swim a lot - almost like a fish - then you are quasi-aquatic.

First off, you correctly got the pocket question, more or less. The one thing in my pocket that I start out with is a hole so that anything added to it... well, you get it.

And yes, hyphens are always welcome although, in this case, not needed.

A term for a person in his or her 50s is "quinquagenarian" which, you may notice, is a perfect DD word which may be found in that thread.

(sidenote: Is the linking feature on the fritz or am I screwing it up somehow? I hit Control C on the address, came here, clicked the "URL" button and then Control V but the address didn't transfer over as it has in the past.)


One last note: The New York Magazine Competition once asked for imaginary tax deductions for real or fictional people. One entrant came up with "Out-of-pocketa expenses - Walter Mitty" which I thought was pretty sharp.

Good one!

And for the sake of closure - the old boat is a quinquireme, sometimes spelled quinquereme, meaning a boat with five banks of oars.

The Harpooner on the Pequod was Queequeg. And never mind Scully's dog from The X-Files .

Ah yes - and lest we forget our roots - Kalleh, just what kind of a riddle is full of holes?

Well, I admit that this one may be a bit far-fetched. I got it from my logophile friend.

A sieve - which is a synonym for riddle.

Well here "riddle" is the normal term for a garden implement consisting of a wire mesh on a frame through which soil is sieved to break the lumps and take out the stones (which is why I didn't answer your riddle).

...and does EVERYONE know "how many were going to Saint Ives?", and so no one wants to spoil it for others and answer?

Answer (in invisible ink):
The classical answer is "Read the riddle again: "As I was going to Saint Ives..." - not the man or wives or sacks etc."

However - there's nothing that says which way all those others were headed. They could have been going in the same direction, too...so it's either one or else maybe 2,403 (me plus one man plus seven-to-the-fourth-power kits/cats/sacks/wives), but we really can't tell which.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: haberdasher,

Want to double-check your math in you last paragraph, Hab?

Hmmm... you're right. If everything is counted, the number is 1 + 1 + 7 + 49 + 343 + 2,401 = 2,802. I left out all the wives and sacks and cats and kits last time.

Or perhaps we should look more closely at the question: "Kits, cats, sacks, wives, how many were going to st. Ives?" No mention of me or The Man. Then the answer is 2,800 exactly.

Or, indulging in the ultimate nitpickery, I suppose you could even say it's just two, because I could he that I met the man but I didn't meet his wives or their paraphernalia. So now we have our choice of one, two, or either of two whole bunches...

No wonder nobody answered the question!

But all that is being a wise guy. The "real" answer is just one; I was the only one going to St. Ives.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: haberdasher,

Incidentally thie above demonstrates perfectly what I was goingon about in another thread. I had no trouble at all reading the "invisible ink" because it showed up on my screen as white on a grey background.

...which could spoil somebody's fun, inadvertently reading what was meant to be read only if wanted.

So here's a workaround: Post the message twice, then see which one is on the grey background and edit it to null. (Not just delete it, because then everything will just move up one post and the colors will reverse again...)

No, I'm sure that there's an actual way to "write invisibly." It seems to me that even I was capable of doing it some time back but I can't recall the process for the life of me.

Reviving a thread...

What three letters mean "good bye" in any language?

Good heaven's, nobody has even guessed? The answer is here. Come on, guys, give riddles a chance! (Trying to sound like the Beatles...miserably, of course! )

I don't really get it, Kalleh.

Well, it must not be that good, then, Sean. Sorry! It's just that KCN is the chemical name for cyanide...which of course mean "good bye" forever! A friend sent it to me, but after I posted it I decided that it probably isn't true. Other languages must have other abbreviations for cyanide. Oh, well...riddles aren't my strength, I guess!