Category Archives: Riddle

Why don’t skeletons fight each other

Age: 19

Date: 02/22/2025

Language: English

Nationality: Chinese American

Occupation: Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: United States

Text:

“Why don’t skeletons fight each other? Because they don’t have the guts!”

Context:

I first heard this joke at a Halloween party when I was a kid. One of my classmates, dressed as a vampire, was going around telling halloween themed jokes to literally anyone who would listen. When he got to me, I remember laughing, partly because I actually found it funny and partly because he delivered it with such confidence, like it was the greatest joke ever told. Later that night, I repeated it to my parents, and they laughed too (probably more at my enthusiasm than the joke itself). From that point on, it became my go-to Halloween joke I’d tell it every year to my friends, and even now, I still think of it whenever October rolls around.

Analysis:

This joke relies on a classic pun, playing with the phrase “having the guts,” which means both possessing courage and literally having internal organs. It’s simple, clever, and lighthearted, qualities that make it a great joke for kids. Puns like this often appear in children’s humor because they introduce wordplay in a way that’s easy to understand and repeat.

Beyond just being a fun Halloween joke, it also reflects the way humor can be tied to specific cultural moments. Skeletons are a common symbol of both horror and comedy, appearing in everything from spooky stories to animated films. The joke takes something that might otherwise be creepy—a skeleton—and makes it silly and harmless, showing how humor can reframe fear. This is a common pattern in folklore and storytelling: turning the eerie into the amusing as a way to make the unknown feel less intimidating. The fact that jokes like this persist over time, especially around Halloween, shows how humor can become part of seasonal traditions, passed down from one generation to the next.

Oro parece, plata no es, el que no lo adivine, muy bobo es

Minor Genre: Riddle

Text: 

  • Spanish: Oro parece, plata no es, el que no lo adivine, muy bobo es 
  • Transliteration: It looks like gold, it’s not silver; whoever doesn’t guess it is a fool 
  • Free Translation: It looks like gold, but it’s not silver; whoever doesn’t guess it isn’t very clever 

Context: For some context, the riddle’s answer is “plátano” (banana), which can be seen when it says “plata no es.” This riddle only makes sense in Spanish because of the wordplay. With that in mind, my informant mentioned that her relationship with the riddle is very personal. Growing up in Cuba, she ate a lot of bananas during dinner and once she had her children, this is a tradition she continued with them. Because of this, she would always use this riddle when at the dinner table with her children to see if they guessed it correctly. My informant first heard this in Cuba during her childhood. She said it is an extremely common riddle that everyone knows. However, she thinks she picked it up in school with her friends. My informant no longer uses this riddle because she considers riddles to be children’s entertainment, and since her children are grown up, she has nobody to tell them to anymore. She mentioned that when she read her children bedtime stories, this riddle would sometimes come up, reinforcing the idea that it was a children’s genre. 


Analysis: This riddle follows one of the typical characteristics of riddles: it is a play on language. In this case, it is a play on saying “plata no es,” as it’s not silver, and “plátano es” as it’s banana.  It’s also interesting that riddles are not common in the United States because Americans tend to think that language is set in stone, and coincidentally, this riddle is Hispanic. Another thing my informant mentioned that is a characteristic of riddles is the idea that they are a children’s genre, having to do with the idea that when you’re a child, you can still be imaginative with words. Something interesting about this riddle is that it has the word “bobo” at the end, which means dumb or foolish. In other versions of this riddle, they say “tonto” which, although translating to a very similar/almost exact thing, differs in its speakers. This riddle is a potential oicotype that may be more common in some Spanish-speaking countries as opposed to others.

Three Doors Riddle

You’re in the woods – it’s dark, there’s no electricity, and you’re running from something (e.g. a bear, a ghost, or some other scary thing). You come across an empty building and go inside. Before you are three doors (may vary among tellers): a circle one, a triangle one, and a rectangle one. Which do you choose?

After you choose one, you are presented with another three doors: for example, one red, one green, one blue. You choose, and again there are three doors: one covered in velvet, one covered in glitter, and one made of wood. This may go on until you are presented with a final set of three doors: one that leads to a den of hungry lions, one to a room with an electric chair, and one with a rising flood. Which do you choose?

The other two doors may vary, but all are meant to present an inescapable death – except the electric chair. As said at the beginning of the riddle, there is no electricity – therefore, upon choosing the room with the electric chair, you will survive, and have thus solved the riddle.

The informant also mentioned a variation of the riddle where one room instead leads to a group of lions that haven’t eaten in a hundred years – in this case, you are meant to be distracted from the fact that the lions would be dead from starvation.

Context: The informant first heard this riddle somewhere between the ages 9 and 13, while at a junior lifeguard summer camp.

Analysis: This seems to fit into a trend of ‘catch’ riddles that a) casually introduce a key detail (lack of electricity), b) distract the receiver with irrelevant information made to seem important (choices between doors + a sense of urgency), and c) ask a question that, unbeknownst to the receiver, depends solely on the key detail. The receiver is then meant to feel foolish for missing the obvious.

Rooster Riddle

Q: If a rooster lays an egg standing on a roof in the middle of the day, which way does it fall?

A: Roosters don’t lay eggs!

Context: The informant heard this riddle from her dad as a child, and speculates that all the extra context given in the riddle (i.e. the roof, the time of day, etc) is meant to throw off the listener from the obvious answer.

Analysis: This seems to fit into a trend of ‘catch’ riddles that a) casually introduce a key detail, b) distract the receiver with irrelevant information made to seem important, and c) ask a question that, unbeknownst to the receiver, depends solely on the key detail. The receiver is then meant to feel foolish for missing the obvious.

A Riddle About A Spoon

¿Qué compras para comer pero no te la comes? Una cuchara. (What do you buy so that you can eat, but don’t actually eat it? A spoon?)

My mom would hear riddles like these growing up from her parents and aunts and uncles.

I myself would also be told these kind of similar riddles in Spanish and my sisters would already know all of them and I’d be struggling to figure them out much to the enjoyment of my family. These kind of riddles are a very recurring element within the types of things circulated around my family.