The informant of this one asked me the riddle. At first I couldn’t make it out, so she told me it again. Upon hearing it the second time, it became evident. The riddle goes as so: One knight, a king, and a queen go out on a boat. On the water, the king falls off. How many people are left on the boat? The answer: two. The answer seems like it should be one, because when phrasing the riddle it sounds like “one night,” not “one knight.” The informant is unsure of where she heard this one and assumes it was probably when she was young. It was not from her family so she assumes that it might be from summer camp. I enjoyed this riddle because most riddles I don’t get. There was a smile on the informant’s face when she told me this and I think she was smiling because she knew I would get it. The informant plans to pass this riddle along to her own family and friends throughout her lifetime. I think I’ll share this riddle amongst my friends after hearing it.
Category Archives: Riddle
The Language of Ubbi Dubbi
Informant Info: The informant is an 18-year-old from St. Louis, Missouri. She is currently a freshman studying Public Policy at USC.
Interview Transcript:
Interviewer: From all of our previous interactions, I know you have a habit of a funky little language. Can you tell me more about it?
Interviewee: The language is called ubbi dubbi, and it originated on a show called Zoom, which is a PBS kids show. All you need to do is put ub in front of every vowel when speaking. We started speaking it in middle school and then in high school everyone seemed to be super into it. It got bad enough that at a certain point that teachers had to put “No phones, no calculators, and no ubbi dubbi” on tests because kids would cheat through it. But yeah, I still like to make memes with it or I’ll just randomly speak it for fun to throw people off.
Analysis:
You must love the good old forms of variation and multiplicity. This collection is an example of how popular media can influence folklore, particularly through kids. The language was a silly piece of a kids show, yet the humorous sounds inspired the informant to make a hobby out of speaking it. I’ll give her credit… it’s harder than it seems to speak it successfully. But, nonetheless, it shows popular media being taken and morphed into an actual language.
Days of the Week Riddle
The informant is my film partner (referred to as MR) who has a Jewish mother who apparently loves jokes and riddles. The informant grew up hearing this riddle and never being able to solve it and now tells this riddle all the time. His mother learned it when she was younger from her father when they lived in Cherry Hill, NJ.
This is the riddle:
Q: Name three consecutive days without using these words: Monday…….Tuesday…….Wednesday…….Thursday……Friday.
A: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow!
MR: “What makes this riddle successful is the misdirection in the instructions. The trickery comes from the word “days,” because your mind goes to the names of the days of the week. Once you know the trick the riddle is super obvious. I think it is funny we always tell this riddle to dinner party members if they haven’t joined us before or if I meet someone new.”
I think the context of this riddle is particularly interesting. This riddle seems to be a running joke within his family and whenever a new member joins the dinner table or party, the riddle is told. It is almost a rite of passage and way to prove yourself to the rest of the family or members of the party. Like the informant stated, once you know the answer, the riddle is painfully obvious and so people who know the answer are all in on the joke, while they wait for the answer. It is almost an initiation.
Riddle
Our conversation went as follows:
Matthew: “You walk into a warehouse and see a man hanging 30 feet in the air from a noose. All you see is a puddle of water and a fan that is turned on. What happened?”
Me: “Is this a riddle?”
Matthew: “Yes, what happened?”
Me: “Did he spill the water?”
Matthew: “No.”
Me: “But he is in fact dead?”
Matthew: “Yes, with a noose around his neck.”
Me: “I’m not sure, tell me.”
Matthew: “He stood on the top of a tall block of ice and put the noose around his neck. He had turned the fan on, so it slowly melted block of ice. After time he is left he’s hanging in the air, melted ice is the puddle of water you see.”
Background Information: Matthew is a 19-year old male born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. He is currently a sophomore at USC.
Context: Matthew shared this story with me in a conversation about holiday traditions with our families over coffee.
Analysis: I find riddles very compelling because unlike a joke, they require creative thought to be solved or understood. I never think to use riddles, as I do not know many, so I am always fascinated when someone finds a way to integrate a riddle within their everyday speech. I had heard a very different rendition of the riddle that Matthew said to me before, but it was different enough that I couldn’t initially see the relation to remember the answer. This is another quality of riddles that makes them so interesting: they demonstrate extreme multiplicity, and you will always find different wording to the riddle and answer depending on who is saying the riddle.
Botellita de jerez Todo lo que digas sera al revez
Folk Metaphor
This saying was told by my grandmother to me which has helped me throughout my life especially when people were being mean to me in school. In English it just means that everything that you say will be backwards so it will go back to you This meaning really helps you fight off those mean words that people tell you in school. You say this and everything that they say is basically going back to them and it really means that what they’re telling you is them telling themselves that.
Background
The significance of this metaphor to the informant was that no matter what people said , with this saying you can turn all the bad things on to them. it was like a magic Karma spell. It has a lot of meaning because it takes way the pain of being called names or being picked on. The informant like sit because it rhymes and its unique .
Analysis
This is from Mexico and this saying is very popularly and this expression refers to everything you want for someone is going to return, or you’re going to return everything you said; or everything you say will be used against ..With this in mind, it is better not to wish anyone badly, or to say things that can be used against you.