Category Archives: Riddle

Masked Men

Nationality: American
Age: 39
Occupation: Energy Efficiency
Residence: Wilmington, Delware
Performance Date: 1/2/19
Primary Language: English

Piece:
You leave home in a rush, make three left turns, return home, and find two masked men waiting for you. Who are they?
An Umpire and a Catcher. This is a game of baseball.

Informant:
SW is a late 30s white male. He is from New England. He lives, breathes, and dies sports. It came to no surprise that when I asked him to recall some jokes and riddles from when he was a kid that he would spout to me a sports based riddle that I would not understand until the answer was revealed.

Background:
Coming from a sports family I’m sure this was a hot riddle for my stepfather. The answer seems almost obvious once you’ve heard it, I believe that is part of the appeal, to make the guesser look foolish at first before rescuing them and shining light on the answer. My stepfather told me how he distinctly remembers hearing this riddle as a kid and being so excited to share it with his siblings and family. This goes to show how even a riddle can be folklore in a home and the impact it can have on a person.

4 Questions, 4 Tests

Nationality: American
Age: 62
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Corona del Mar, California
Primary Language: English

This conversation is between the collector (C) and the informant (I).

I: I’m going to ask you four questions, and this isn’t just for fun. It’s going to test you on your greatest strengths and weaknesses. Are you ready?

C: I’m ready.

I: The first question is, “How do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?”

C: (After a long pause) I don’t know.

I: You open the refrigerator, put the giraffe inside, and close it. That was to test if you overthink simple questions. The second question is, “How do you put an elephant in a refrigerator?”

C: You open the refrigerator, but the elephant inside, and close it.

I: Wrong. First, you have to take out the giraffe. That was to test whether you understand the consequences of your actions. The third question is, “The whole jungle has an animal meeting, and all but one animal show up.Who isn’t there?”

C: (After a long pause) I give up.

I: The elephant! He’s still in the refrigerator. That was to test your memory. You have one last question, and it’s the most important one: “You need to cross a river. It is filled with crocodiles, and you have no boat. How do you get across?”

C: You distract the crocodiles?

I: You don’t need to. They’re still at the animal meeting. That was to test whether you learn from your mistakes.

Context: The informant is significantly older than the collector, which might add to the educational aspect of the joke.

Interpretation: Obviously, this is first and foremost for entertainment. But it does teach the audience to think through their answers carefully, understand that actions have consequences, and learn from past experiences. It is a silly series of questions with a surprising amount of moral value. It is distinctly structured for educational purposes, and therefore places the joke-teller in a position of authority and wisdom over the audience.

 

Was haben Frauen und Handgranaten gemeinsam?

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Residence: Long Beach, California
Primary Language: English
Language: German

“Was haben Frauen und Handgranaten gemeinsam?

Ziehst du den Ring ab, ist dein Haus weg!”

“What do a woman and a hand grenade have in common?

When you take the ring off, your house is gone!”

Context: The informant went to school on a military base in Weisbaden, Germany, and spent the majority of her childhood there. She heard this joke from classmates who were mostly male.

Interpretation: This is perhaps meant to be cautionary toward young men. It is based on the stereotype that women use men for money, and could perhaps make men more cautious when choosing a wife so that they do not have to worry about “taking the ring off.” It uses humor to make women and marriage threatening, which is a common occurrence in American stand-up comedy. Furthermore, it subtly warns against divorce, which could suggest to the audience that an unhappy marriage is better than a divorce.

Feminist Riddle

I am a big fan of riddles, and I decided to search online for some specifically geared towards exercising the brain. Below, I recorded one I had never heard before, and most stood out to me

Riddle:

Question: Three doctors said that Robert was their brother. Robert said he had no brothers. Who is lying?

Answer: Neither, the doctors were his sisters.

Analysis:

I enjoy this riddle because clearly it is clever, but beyond that, I like that it is a slight take on feminism and misogynistic undertones. It merely suggests our mind is trained to associate siblings with firstly brotherhood, and also careers such as doctors. Usually, a classic feminist motivation is to clear up sexism in the work force, specifically in demand-driven jobs such doctors, surgeons, lawyers, etc. To me, this is an interesting example of folklore because I think it offers historical, political, and social context of feminism. It reflects, depending on when this riddle actually emerged, on a certain social climate of the time. It would be even more interesting to learn of the origination of this riddle.

 

Website Citation: For more references of other similar riddles, visit the following URL:

https://www.wimp.com/20-tricky-riddles-that-will-exercise-your-brain/

 

 

Riddle of the Days

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/19/2018
Primary Language: English

I am a big fan of riddles, and I decided to ask my friend, marked KB, if she knew of any. She shared with me one.

Riddle:

Question: Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?

Answer: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.

Context:

Phone conversation in which I recorded KB’s recounts of folk similes as well as a riddle she grew up learning.

Background:

KB is a freshman at the University of Southern California and grew up in Austin, Texas.

Analysis:

I enjoy this riddle because it is clever and something I never would have thought of. It would be interesting to further research this riddles origins and possibly link it to specific heritages or cultures.