Sounds Nothing Like the Word

When pronounced, it sounds nothing like the word.

A sentence.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

This Is What Some People Do

This is what some people do,
For a compliment or two,
Anglers do it on a bank,
Others keep theirs in a tank.

What am I?

A fish. Some people fish for compliments, anglers are fishermen and fish live in a tank.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

Short Black Dress

In the day I stand tall in a white petticoat. By evening I’m in my short black dress. What am I?

The wick of a candle.

Posted in Riddles

NDOLA

What does “NDOLA, PAMODZI” mean?

Thanks to the comments, it doesn’t mean anything per se, but it’s a location in Zambia. If that’s all it is, it’s not really a brain teaser, but since we’ve already worked on it, I’m marking it as solved leaving it up for posterity.

Below are former attempts to solve it.

I have yet to figure this one out. NDOLA could mean And lo, or An old, among other things. Pamodzi on the other hand didn’t have any particularly meaningful anagrams. Both words together had over 1,000 anagrams.

I haven’t come up with any other possible meanings.

Posted in Brain Teasers

8 = S O A S S

What does this represent?

8 = S O A S S

8 = Sides of a stop sign

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Ten More Apples

If you and a friend have the same amount of apples, how many does she need to give you in order to have 10 more apples than her?

She will always need to give you 5 apples. You both need at least 5 apples to begin with, but apart from that it doesn’t matter exactly how many you each have. When she gives you 5 you will have 10 more than her because she will lose 5 and you will gain 5, resulting in a net difference of 10.

For example, if you each have 25 apples and she gives you 5 of hers, she will be left with 20 and you will now have 30, precisely 10 more than she has.

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Charming Dimple

There are two meanings to me. With one I may need to be broken, with the other I hold on. My favorite characteristic is my charming dimple. What am I?

A tie.

Posted in Riddles

False Positive HIV Test

Imagine an HIV test that is 95% accurate (false positive rate of 5%) and around 2% of the tested population is infected with HIV. What is the probability that you actually have HIV when your test comes back positive?

29%

To read more about this, see the False Positive Paradox page on Wikipedia.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Rainbow Neighborhood

There was a neighborhood of one-story houses.
One was red and everything in the house was red.
Another was purple and everything in the house was purple.
Yet another was yellow and everything in the house was yellow.
Still another was blue and everything in the house was blue.
In the green house everything was green,
and in the gray house everything was grey.

What color were the stairs in the yellow house?

There are no stairs in any of the houses because they only have one story.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Hello Father

A women and daughter walked into a restaurant. A man walked past and the women both said, “Hello, Father”. How is this possible?

The man was a priest.

Posted in Brain Teasers