Category Archives: Riddle

Sumer Riddle

Nationality: U.S. Citizen
Age: 57
Occupation: High school english teacher
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English

The ancient civilization Sumer is home to one of the earliest riddles known in existence.  The following is the first riddle recited by my old high school english teacher:

“There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?

Answer: A school.

That’s why it’s my favorite”

Analysis: My old teacher said he first heard this riddle from another teacher at a school he used to teach at and has been teaching it to his students ever since.  I think riddles are extremely significant pieces of folklore because they make people think but are still lighthearted.  Riddles have had more cultural significance earlier in history when heroes would commonly be asked them in order to enter or pass through an area of some sort such as a temple.  Nowadays, people do not get asked or tell riddles as commonly, but it is not uncommon for people to still have to answer riddles to gain entry somewhere, like a password to a secret party.  For example, there is a riddle each member of my sorority must solve to gain entrance to our weekly chapter meetings.  Riddles are especially prevalent in schools where instructors are constantly trying to help their students gain knowledge by challenging them academically with something like a riddle.  I find this piece of folklore intriguing because the riddle by itself often accompanies a larger story involving key players such as who is asking the riddle and who is answering the riddle.  One can either choose to look at the whole story or simply analyze the riddle.

The Difference Between God and A Surgeon

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 18 2017
Primary Language: English

The informant is a junior at USC from Chicago, Illinois studying dentistry.

After a discussion of the meaning and purpose of folklore I asked him if he knew of any folk practices or sayings related to his profession. We arrived at this question because he comes from a family of dental practitioners. He has been shadowing various oral surgeons over the past year and described an incident that occurred over the past summer.

He was shadowing a successful oral surgeon in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois. He was observing his first intense oral surgery as it was occurring.

Mid surgery, the surgeon whom he was shadowing looked up and recited the following:

Do you know what the difference between God and a surgeon is?

(After a pause) God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon.

He couldn’t help but break into a fit of laughter as the surgeon returned to his procedure.

 

This is an interesting little joke that is variously ascribed to a variety of high skill professions such as lawyers and pilots as well. There’s an interesting duality here in that a high level of intelligence, skill, and grit is necessary to become a surgeon, and yet of course there are problems in thinking so highly of oneself. Thus, I sense a bit of ambivalence in the joke that is highly contextual. For example, if the surgeon performs a high-risk surgery correctly and says the joke, there’s a bit of pride in the sense of peril and gamble that the surgeon competed against. On the other hand, if the surgery were to fail and the joke be told (rare or strange, of course), the attention would then shift to the absurdity of such risk, of the sense of avoiding the unavoidable failure and the conceit latent in thinking so. Beyond this startling ambiguity, there’s also a sense of science superseding faith. The surgeon steps in and saves a life when there is no hope, thus affirming his or her self as a miracle of science is performed.

Math joke/riddle

Age: 46
Residence: Tracy
Primary Language: English

My mom must find numerous ways to engage her students since most people have a fear and hatred of math. She often attempts to tells jokes that relate to something she is teaching. She learned this joke from a colleague.  “You have a kitchen and there is a pot of water on the floor. How do you boil the pot of water? Simple, you pick up the pot of water, place it on the stove, and turn the stove on. Now, how do you boil a pot of water on the counter?…… You place it on the floor and use part A.” My mom likes this joke because it resembles how one would use an existing proof in another proof. She also likes it because it has a deceptively easy answer that most people don’t think of. My mom has a degree in biochemistry and a Master’s degree in educations. She teaches math to high schoolers. She enjoys doing math puzzles and learning to code. As a result, she has collected an enormous amount of folklore. Predominantly from her students, but also from colleagues and conferences. Some of this folklore is unique to each niche while other pieces span multiple groups. This provides a unique perspective on folklore from these rather similar groups. Since my mom and I are quite similar I think the joke is funny for very similar reasons. Since I do a lot of proofs for my classes I think the answer to this joke is a “oh duh” moment. I usually have one of those when I finally figure out how to solve a problem and prove the answer. There is generally one step that makes the whole answer fit together and most of the time it is something annoyingly obvious. This joke just reminds me of those moments which are funny looking back on them, but while I was working on the problem they weren’t so funny.

Russian Riddles

Nationality: Russian, American
Age: 26
Occupation: Hedge Fund Analyst
Residence: New York, NY
Performance Date: April 8, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

The 26-year-old informant was born in Russia, but moved to the U.S. at a young age. During his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College, he was a teaching assistant for a Russian folklore class and found these pieces of folklore to be particularly interesting or representative of Russian culture.

“Another sort of interesting thing that occurs in all sort of Russian folklore is riddles. Like, in fairytales you’ll often have heroes having to solve riddles. So one riddle is:

In the morning it’s seven feet long,

At midday it’s seven inches long,

And in the evening, it reaches across the field.

So the answer to that is a shadow.

Another one is:

Can’t be measured,

Can’t be weighed,

But everyone’s got one.

And the answer to that is the mind.”

Riddle – Name three consecutive days

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Nationality: American
Age: 46
Occupation: Small Business Owner
Residence: NJ
Performance Date: March 18
Primary Language: English

Informant is my mother who loves riddles. She is known to challenge entire dinner parties with this one riddle, often with nobody able to solve it. She presented this one at a family dinner because there was a guest present who hadn’t heard it before. She says she didn’t make it up but doesn’t remember where she heard it. She thinks she probably learned it from her father when she was younger, living in Cherry Hill, NJ.

 

Here’s the riddle:

Q: Name three consecutive days without using these words: Monday…….Tuesday…….Wednesday…….Thursday……Friday.

A: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow!

 

I think what makes this riddle memorable is the misdirection in the instructions. Of course, the trick is the use of the word “days.” Because of the nature of the trick, when you know the riddle it’s painfully obvious, but without knowing it can be hopeless. Before one has heard the riddle (like any riddle), the right answer is unclear. But after hearing the solution, it seems so obvious. I think it’s like an initiation to her, a rite of passage at the communal dinner table.