Category Archives: Riddle

The Woodchuck Riddle

Nationality: Philippeano
Age: 21
Occupation: Student, Part time facilities attendant at on campus gym
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

I asked my informant to tell me a riddle or story he knew of:

 

Me: When did you hear this Riddle or Rhyme?

Informant: Fifth grade

Me: In Fifth grade… where?

Informant: Just, a teacher told me

Me: How does it go?

Informant: How much wood would a wood chuck chuck, if a wood chuck could chuck could?

Me: Could chuck… what?

Informant: Chuck Could, chuck… wood?

[laughter]

 

The fact that my informant learned this popular Rhyme as early as the fifth grade is testament to it’s longevity. It no doubt keeps its popularity since it remains hard to recite even for those who know it, such as my informant, who, still accidentally mispronounced the last word.

“Knock Knock, Who’s there?………..”

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 24
Occupation: Student, Part time facilities attendant at on campus gym
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

This is another seemingly popular “knock knock joke provided me by my informant:

Informant: say “knock, knock”

Me: knock, knock

Informant: Who’s there?

[a long pause followed by laughter]

Informant: Yep, that’s the joke!

 

In this joke, the teller attempts to invert the knock knock sequence, by attempting the get the other party to tell him a joke without having a joke in mind, thus being rendered dumbstruck. It adds an interesting twist of deception to the otherwise predictable “knock knock” pattern.

A Romantic Knock Knock Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student, Part time facilities attendant at on campus gym
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant here recounts a knock knock joke which was spontaneously told to her by an adolescent:

So I was babysitting this kid, and he started telling me this knock knock joke: he was like “knock knock” and I was like “who’s there?” and he was like “window!” and I was like “window who?” and he was like “window to your heart,” and I was like “wow kid that’s really deep.”

Although my informant said she felt as much amusement as genuine gratitude in return for this knock knock joke, she mentioned how “awesome” it was since it had come from a child. Indeed, the propensity of the cheesiest lines to touch us when recited by children can only be due to their pure child-like honesty. In fact, It was this selfsame pure benevolence, which comes through this knock knock joke, and so touched my informant.

Chinese Riddle/Tongue Twister

Nationality: British (Hong Kong), American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 24th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“men wai you shi shi shi zhi shi shi zi,

hui shi you shi shi shi zhi shi shi zi ?”

Listen

 “Beyond the door are 44 stone lions, or are they 44 dead lions?”

“This one is really common in schools, at least in my experience, because not only is it a riddle or a play on words, but the best way to describe it is a tongue twister. To be able to say it would prove your aptitude with the language, because Chinese works on a system where you have four pronunciation levels; there’s a flat, a rising, a dip and then a fall tone, and with the tone itself it changes meaning. Anyway, its a very short phrase, and translated it means, “Beyond the door are 44 stone lions, or are they 44 dead lions?” Usually the person hearing the rhyme is not expected to have an answer for it, in the context I learned it its not so much for that as it is can you say it and not mess up, and if you don’t mess up then you’re pretty good.  One of the most important things about speaking Chinese is to be aware of the difference in meaning one change in tone can make. I mean for me it was a lot of fun, and kids get a lot of bravado because they feel they know how to pronounce words properly. So it was a way to encourage kids to learn tonal differences. I never really studied why this tongue twister became so popular, but I do know that a lot of old Chinese houses like stone lions in front of their doors, as guardian spirits.” (see entry: Chinese Door Guardians)

The informant who told me about this tongue twister was born and grew up in Hong Kong for a great part of his life. He speaks fluent Chinese and has had significant exposure to Chinese culture, given the fact that he and his family still speak the language and practice many of the traditional customs. He moved to the US in 5th grade.

The informant remembers first learning this tongue twister in school about 9 years ago, when he still lived in Hong Kong. China has a very established culture of tongue twisters, given that the language is difficult to speak and tonal differences are key. He says that this is one of he most prolific and popular tongue twisters in China, and like the others, it relies on the difficulty of its pronunciation to create the challenge. Apparently this is a shortened version of a longer, more difficult tongue twister that is practiced by people schooled in traditional Chinese, however, this is the more popular one.

Lawnmower Riddle

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Lawyer
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

The informant describes a riddle about an old man and a lawnmower.  The informant explains that he heard this from a friend at work and found it a fun riddle that made him think outside of the box and left him unable to figure out the answer.  Below is a summary of the riddle:

A friend of mine has a father who is sixty-five and has mowed his own lawn for years and years and he has a gas-powered, push lawnmower.  He has lived at the same place, cut the same grass, and used the same lawnmower for years and years.  He began to complain that the lawnmower wasn’t working properly.  He used to be able to cut the grass on one tank of gas and now he had to fill the lawnmower up with gas before he could finish the job.  He took the lawnmower to a small engine repair shop in town and the shop gave a full tune up on the machine – new spark plug and general touch up.  He picked up the lawnmower and went back to weekly task of mowing the lawn but was quite frustrated because despite having spent money to tune it up, it still took a refill of gas before finishing.  The question is, what is wrong with the lawnmower? The answer to this riddle is that nothing had changed about the lawnmower, but what had changed was that the man was sixty-five years old and walking slower to cut the grass.  That explains why it took more gas.

This riddle is a classic example of a scenario that forces one to think outside of the box or normal thought patterns.  Riddles such as this one are quite common within the United States and around the world.  Their popularity most likely stems from individuals’ desire to prove their intelligence and ability to solve problems.  The riddle being about a man with a lawn and a lawnmower indicates that this riddle originated from a society that has lawnmowers and lawns to mow.  It is likely that a joke involving these two things would not exist in a society without lawns or grass.