Informant:

This joke was provided by Jessyka Linton, 19.  She considers herself African-American and is a student at the University of Southern California.  Jessyka learned this joke from her younger brother, and she shared it while waiting to take a group picture at a retreat with members from an on-campus Christian organization.  In her performance, she did not leave time between the question and the answer for people to answer.  It was met with laughter.

Text:

What’s green and has four wheels?  Grass, I lied about the wheels.

Analysis:

This joke, in many ways, qualifies as a nonsense riddle in children’s folklore.  It creates nonsense by violating the riddling conventions and canons of common sense altogether.  Interestingly, Jessyka left no time for the hearers to consider her “riddle.”  This probably made the solution more satisfying.  If serious thought had been put into it, the audience would have felt deceived and underwhelmed by the joke.