Riddles

[Solo Christo]

Anyone know any riddles?

Here's "The Missing Dollar":

Three guys were traveling with little money and needed a place to stay. They came to a motel and approach the front desk. The manager offeres them a single room for $30. Simple enough, the fellas went in on it $10 a piece and checked in. No sooner were they gone, however, before the manager remembered that the room was part of a Tuesday Night Special. It should have been $25. He gives five one dollar bills to the bellhop and askes him to return it to the gentlemen. On the way, the bellhop got to thinking that $5 didn't split up easily three ways. So he just gave them $3 and pocketed $2 for himself (and clearly violated the 8th Commandment).

Well, now each of the men have paid $9 for the room instead of $10. Right? Right. And 3 guys times 9 dollars equals $27. Right? Right. Plus the $2 in the bellhop's pocket equals $29. Right? Right. OK, so where's the missing dollar?

[Edited on 7-18-2005 by Solo Christo]

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

They paid $25 for the room. Not $24.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Its a clever riddle, but the play has to do with the properties of multiplication and addition. The two additional dollars are "coughed up" unwittingly by the room occupants between the three of them (the equivalent of 66 2/3 cents apiece) and, ah, "tipped" to the bellhop. The two dollars do not get added to 27, but subtracted.

Bottom line: the "price" of the room, as far as the occupants go was not 30, not 25, but exactly 27 dollars ($9 apiece)--25 to the clerk, 2 to the bellhop.

 

[Solo Christo]

Well done.

 

[Scott]

My favorite riddle:

What is it that the poor have, the rich want, people love it more than life yet fear it more than death, and is not harmful in and of itself but if you eat it always you will die?

 

[daveb]

Originally posted by Scott
My favorite riddle:

What is it that the poor have, the rich want, people love it more than life yet fear it more than death, and is not harmful in and of itself but if you eat it always you will die?

Is it "nothing"?

 

[Scott]

David - yes, well done.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

I should have remembered that one. It's in my wallet:

What doth man love more than life,
Hate more than death or mortal strife?
'Tis that which contented men desire,
The poor possess and the rich require,
The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to theri graves.

 

[Solo Christo]

The person who makes it doesn't want it.
The person who buys it doesn't need it.
The person who needs it doesn't know it.

What is it?

 

[WrittenFromUtopia]

Gas?

 

[Solo Christo]

Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia
Gas?

 

[Scott]

"It's in my wallet"

When I first read that I thought you were saying nothing is in your wallet.

Anyway, that is the same riddle. I forgot the part about the miser wants spends it and the spendthrift saves it.

Where did you get the riddle?

[Edited on 7-20-2005 by Scott]

 

[Contra_Mundum]

I clipped it from a newspaper.

But when I thought about how you read it as "nothing in my wallet," I realized "the joke has been on me" for quite some time now, and I didn't realize it...

 

[sastark]

Originally posted by Solo Christo
The person who makes it doesn't want it.
The person who buys it doesn't need it.
The person who needs it doesn't know it.

A casket?

 

[Scott]

Seth - that is good. That sounds right, but I will wait for the official answer.

 

[Solo Christo]

Originally posted by sastark

Originally posted by Solo Christo
The person who makes it doesn't want it.
The person who buys it doesn't need it.
The person who needs it doesn't know it.

A casket?

Nice job, officially!

 

[sastark]

Originally posted by Solo Christo

Nice job, officially!

Haha. Thanks!

 

[alwaysreforming]

Originally posted by sastark

Originally posted by Solo Christo
The person who makes it doesn't want it.
The person who buys it doesn't need it.
The person who needs it doesn't know it.

A casket?

I know we already have the official answer, but it doesn't seem to fit:

"The person who buys it doesn't need it."
Sure they need it. They need it to bury their dead relative in!

 

[Average Joey]

I never got the riddle that Bilbo Baggins gave at his birthday party in Fellowship of the Ring.

"I like half of you, half as well as I should like, and I like half of you half as well as you deserve."

[Edited on 7-23-2005 by Average Joey]

 

[Scott]

It is sort of like saying, "I would rather be with you friends than with the best people on earth."

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Originally posted by Average Joey
I never got the riddle that Bilbo Baggins gave at his birthday party in Fellowship of the Ring.

"I like half of you, half as well as I should like, and I like half of you half as well as you deserve."

[Edited on 7-23-2005 by Average Joey]

I half get it.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Its a "speaker's phrase." For one thing Bilbo's not really splitting the audience into halves, his words are rhetorical. He says that the reason he doesn't like some of them more isn't their fault, its his, either because he isn't charitable enough, or he isn't alert enough, or he's incapable because of some moral limitation. It's really quite clever, and endearing.

 

[turmeric]

Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot

Originally posted by Average Joey
I never got the riddle that Bilbo Baggins gave at his birthday party in Fellowship of the Ring.

"I like half of you, half as well as I should like, and I like half of you half as well as you deserve."

[Edited on 7-23-2005 by Average Joey]

I half get it.

It's the sort of riddle a Halfling would make!

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Originally posted by turmeric

Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot

Originally posted by Average Joey
I never got the riddle that Bilbo Baggins gave at his birthday party in Fellowship of the Ring.

"I like half of you, half as well as I should like, and I like half of you half as well as you deserve."

[Edited on 7-23-2005 by Average Joey]

I half get it.

It's the sort of riddle a Halfling would make!

 

[bnmhebda]

a very old riddle

W H A T "˜ S M Y N A M E

God made Adam out of dust,
But thought it best to make me first;
So I was made before the man,
According to God´s holy plan.
My whole body God made complete,
Without arms or legs or feet.
My ways and acts God did control,
But in my body He placed no soul.
A living being I became,
And Adam gave to me a name.
Then from his presence I withdrew,
For this man Adam I never knew.

All my Maker´s laws I do obey,
And from these laws I never stray.
Thousands of me go in fear,
But seldom on the earth appear.
Later for a purpose God did see,
He placed a living soul in me.
But that soul of mine God had to claim,
And from me took it back again.
And when this soul from me had fled,
I was the same as when first made;
Without arms, legs, feet or soul,
I travel on from pole to pole.

My labors are from day to night,
And to men I once furnished light.
Thousands of people both young and old,
Did by my death bright lights behold.
No right or wrong I can conceive;
The Bible and its teachings I can´t believe.
The fear of death doesn´t trouble me;
Pure happiness I will never see.
And up in Heaven I can never go,
Nor in the grave or Hell below.
So get your Bible and read with care;
You´ll find my name recorded there.


(This puzzle was written by a lady in California in 1890 in response to a gentleman in Philadelphia who said that he would pay $1,000, a great sum at that time, to anyone who could write a puzzle he could not solve. He failed to do so and paid the lady $1,000.)

 

[SolaScriptura]

Originally posted by bnmhebda
W H A T "˜ S M Y N A M E

God made Adam out of dust,
But thought it best to make me first;
So I was made before the man,
According to God´s holy plan.
My whole body God made complete,
Without arms or legs or feet.
My ways and acts God did control,
But in my body He placed no soul.
A living being I became,
And Adam gave to me a name.
Then from his presence I withdrew,
For this man Adam I never knew.

All my Maker´s laws I do obey,
And from these laws I never stray.
Thousands of me go in fear,
But seldom on the earth appear.
Later for a purpose God did see,
He placed a living soul in me.
But that soul of mine God had to claim,
And from me took it back again.
And when this soul from me had fled,
I was the same as when first made;
Without arms, legs, feet or soul,
I travel on from pole to pole.

My labors are from day to night,
And to men I once furnished light.
Thousands of people both young and old,
Did by my death bright lights behold.
No right or wrong I can conceive;
The Bible and its teachings I can´t believe.
The fear of death doesn´t trouble me;
Pure happiness I will never see.
And up in Heaven I can never go,
Nor in the grave or Hell below.
So get your Bible and read with care;
You´ll find my name recorded there.


(This puzzle was written by a lady in California in 1890 in response to a gentleman in Philadelphia who said that he would pay $1,000, a great sum at that time, to anyone who could write a puzzle he could not solve. He failed to do so and paid the lady $1,000.)

Whale.

 

[satz]

Ben you ruined it for me ...

 

[bigheavyq]

what is black when you buy it
red when you use it
and grey when you throw it away

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Originally posted by bigheavyq
what is black when you buy it
red when you use it
and grey when you throw it away

Charcoal.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I'm there in darkness, but not alight
Can be seen in daytime, but missing at night
I'm there in the shadows, but not in sight.