I Am, In Truth, A Yellow Fork

I am, in truth, a yellow fork
From tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropped
The awful cutlery.
Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The apparatus of the dark
To ignorance revealed.

— Emily Dickenson

Lightning.

Posted in Riddles

One Three Five

What word comes next?

one three five four ______

Four. Each word is the number of letters in the previous word. And since four has four letters, it would continue with four forever after.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Two Plus Two Equals Four

Each letter represents a different digit. Any digit can be used, but zero can never start a word. Given W = 2 and R = 6, what do the rest of the letters represent?

  TWO
+ TWO
------
 FOUR

F = 1
O = 8
R = 6
T = 9
U = 5
W = 2

  928
+ 928
-----
 1856
Posted in Brain Teasers

Represent The Alphabet

What word or expression does this represent?

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTVWXYZ

Missing you (U).

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Great Woman

The first two letters of this English word refer to a male, the first three refer to a female, the first four to a great man and the whole word is a great woman.

What is the word?

Heroine (he, her, hero)

Posted in Riddles

I Am And Yet Cannot

I am and yet cannot,
I’m an idea, yet can rot,
I’m two but none,
On land but on sea.

What am I?

A paradox / pair of docks.

Posted in Riddles

Your Father’s Sister’s Sister-in-law

What relation would your father’s only single sister’s sister-in-law be to you?

Your mother.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The 500 Mile Race

Mike, Jimmy, Nader, Kevin, and Larry were the top five finishers in the regional 500-mile race. They drove yellow, orange, green, red and blue cars but not necessarily in that order.

Neither Kevin nor Larry drove the green car.
Kevin finished faster than Mike and Larry.
The blue car finished earlier than Larry’s and Nader’s car.
The yellow car finished faster than the green car and the orange car.
Mike’s and Larry’s car finished ahead of the orange car.
Jimmy’s car finished before the blue and the yellow car.

Who drove what color car and what place did each driver finish?

1st – Jimmy, red car
2nd – Kevin, blue car
3rd – Larry, yellow car
4th – Mike, green car
5th – Nader, orange car

Posted in Brain Teasers

Son of Water

You eat something you neither plant nor plow.
It is the son of water, but if water touches it, it dies.

Salt. It comes from saltwater but salt melts ice (the solid form of water).

Posted in Riddles

I Am Like A Witch’s Brew

I am like a witch’s brew,
I make people do what they don’t want to,
At the sound of my voice,
You have no choice,
But to do what’s requested of you.

What am I?

The magic word – please. It makes people do things they otherwise wouldn’t be inclined to do. When parents are teaching children about manners, they call it the magic word and wait to fulfill a request until the child says please. Once the child says it, the parent feels bound to do it to show the child that it works.

Posted in Riddles