What Once Was Red Is Black Instead

Tear one off and scratch my head, what once was red is black instead. What am I?

A match. You tear a match out of a matchbook and scratch the head to light it, then the red tip turns black from the flame.

This is an exact duplicate of Tear One Off and Scratch My Head but I’m leaving it to avoid broken links.

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Whelming Rebus

What does this represent?

 1 3 5 7 9
-----------
 WHELMING

Overwhelming odds.

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From Plant to Star

What plant becomes the name of a star by removing the first letter, becomes a number without the last letter and becomes a bird if the first and last letters are taken away?

Ivy

VY = VY Canis Majoris, one of the largest known stars
IV = Roman Numeral 4
V = representation of a bird

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Pronounced As One Letter, Written With Three

Pronounced as one letter,
And written with three,
Two letters there are,
And two only in me.
I’m double, I’m single,
I’m black, blue, and gray,
I’m read from both ends,
And the same either way.

What am I?

Eye. It’s pronounced like the letter ‘i’, but written with three letters. There are only two letters used (‘e’ and ‘y’). The eye is double with two ‘e’s and represents a single eye. The eye is made up of various colors, some of which are black, blue and gray. And lastly, the eye is a palindrome, spelled the same forward and backward.

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How Old Is The Shepherd?

There are 125 sheep and 5 dogs in a flock.

How old is the shepherd?

You can’t determine the answer.

I debated adding this riddle because it is less of a riddle and more of an illustration of how kids are (or are not) being taught to think for themselves. But after reading how kids feel the need to make up an answer without understanding why, I thought this could be a good reminder for all of us to exercise our critical thinking skills.

(via Student Voices)

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A Red Robe and Staff In Hand

I wear a red robe,
With staff in hand,
And a stone in my throat.
Cut me and I weep red tears

What am I?

A cherry

There are a few other variations of this one:

As I went through the garden gap,
Who should I meet but Dick Red-cap!
A stick in his hand, a stone in his throat,
If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a groat.
(Said to be the lyrics to A Cherry)

I slipped down a slippery gap,
Found a man with a red cap,
He had a stick in his back and a stone in his belly,
Riddle me this and I’ll give you a penny.

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Three Children’s Names

Tom’s mother has three children. One is named April, one is named May. What is the third one named?

Tom

Posted in Brain Teasers

Sixteen, Twenty-six, Then What?

Fill in the missing numbers in this number series.

16, 26, ?, 43, 50, ?, 61, 65, ?, 70, 71

The method to create the series is start by adding 10, then decrease the addend by 1 for each new number in the sequence. That gives us:

16 + 10 = 26
26 + 9 = 35
35 + 8 = 43
43 + 7 = 50
50 + 6 = 56
56 + 5 = 61
61 + 4 = 65
65 + 3 = 68
68 + 2 = 70
70 + 1 = 71

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SO ND JF

SO, ND, JF, MA, __, __

What are the next two pairs of letters?

MJ, JA. September, October, November, December…

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I Am Here, I Am There

I am here, I am there
I am burned into the mind of none
I walk on fire and live on ice
My words are meaningless for I talk not
I hate everyone yet fear no one
I have lived for centuries
Yet I have never existed
What am I?

Nothingness.

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