Ghoti Pronunciation

How do you pronounce Ghoti?

Fish. The gh is pronounced as in tough, the o as in women and the ti as in nation. Ghoti is a constructed word to illustrate irregularities in English spelling.

Posted in Brain Teasers

T is Like an Island

How is the letter T like an island?

It’s in the middle of waTer.

Posted in Riddles

A Special Group of Words

These words all fall into a special group. Your challenge is to nominate one of the words below and determine why it fits into the special group.

RING
TOPS
MANATEE
WINDLESS
EARTH
ANGER

Choose the word that also falls into the above group

a. MATTER
b. TUNES
c. OUGHT
d. HEARTH

c. OUGHT

Each of these words forms a different word when the last letter is moved to the front.

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Chimadena

What does this represent?

chimadena

Made in china. The word “made” is wedged between the word “china” (chi-na)

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Three Pills From the Doctor

Your doctor gives you three pills and tells you to take one every half hour. How much time will have passed by the time you’ve taken all three pills?

One hour. You take the first pill, then wait a half hour and take the second pill, then at the hour mark you take the third and last pill.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Rebellious Randall

You’re waiting to board your flight at the airport with 99 other passengers, each with an assigned seat. All but one of the passengers will gladly sit in their designated seat. The only exception is Randall, a scoundrel who refuses to follow the rules. When he boards, he will choose a random, unoccupied seat.

If a rule-following passenger finds someone in their spot, they will choose another one at a random from the remaining unoccupied seats.

What is the probability that the last person to board the plane will sit in their proper seat?

The randomness stops as soon as someone else sits in Randall’s assigned seat. The chances of this happening range from 1 out of 99 to 1 out of 1 (when only one seat remains).

Thus, the probability of the last person sitting in their own seat can be calculated as 1/99 plus the sum of 2 to 98 of the formula 1 / n × (n + 1), which works out to 0.5, or 50%.

So there’s a 50% chance the last passenger will sit in their own seat thanks to Randall for screwing up order and procedure when boarding an aircraft.

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ABCDE and What?

What comes next in this series?

A B C D E

Hint: It’s not F.

K. The letters represent vitamins, and there is currently no Vitamin F, G, H, I or J.

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854917632

What is special about the number 854917632?

It is the numbers from 1 to 9 in alphabetical order.

Eight
Five
Four
Nine
One
Seven
Six
Three
Two

Posted in Riddles

Three Foot Ruler

Where can you find a three foot ruler?

At a yard sale. How did another joke riddle get in here?

Posted in Riddles

By Odin’s Beard

Some came from the Sun and Moon,
Others from Thor and his hammer are hewn,

By Odin’s beard, and Frigg and Tiw,
The last is Saturn, from which we grew.

What are we?

They are the origins of the names of each day of the week.

Sunday – Sun day.
Monday – Moon day.
Tuesday – Tiw’s or Týr’s day, the god of single combat, son of Odin.
Wednesday – Woden’s or Odin’s day, god of poetry and of the dead.
Thursday – Thor’s day, god of thunder, son of Odin.
Friday – Frigg’s day, goddess of the clouds, wife of Odin.
Saturday – Saturn’s day, god of fertility and agriculture.

Posted in Brain Teasers