Living to Six

How can you cross out four letters from the word LIVING to leave six remaining?

Cross out LING, leaving you with VI, or 6 in Roman numerals.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Canaries in the Cage

I am the owner of a pet store. If I put in one canary per cage, I have one bird too many. If I put in two canaries per cage, I have one cage too many. How many cages and canaries do I have?

Four canaries and three cages.

If you put one canary in each cage, you have an extra bird without a cage. However, if you put two canaries in each cage then you have two canaries in the first cage, two canaries in the second cage and an extra cage.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Lying On Certain Days of the Week

Angel lies on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays but tells the truth the rest of the week.

Brenda lies on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but tells the truth every other day.

Angel says, “Yesterday I was lying.”

Brenda replies, “So was I.”

What day was it?

Thursday.

Putting the information in a table makes it easier to solve. We’ll use A for Angie, B for Brenda, T for truth and F (false) for lying.

 SMTWThFS
ATFFFTTT
BTTTTFFF

To begin with, there aren’t any days where both of them told the truth and lied the day before, so we know one of them must be lying.

So we have two options, either Angel is lying or Brenda is.

Option 1. Angel is lying.

In order for this to be the case, she needs to be lying today and telling the truth yesterday, so we need two days in a row with T F. And if Brenda is telling the truth, she would need two days with F T. That means we’re looking for two days that have

Angie:  T F
Brenda: F T

Option 2. Brenda is lying.

This is just the reverse of the above, so we need to find:

Angie:  F T
Brenda: T F

The only day that matches either of the two options is Thursday, and it’s option 2. Brenda is the liar.

Posted in Brain Teasers

TMC Rebus

T M C
A U O
H S M
W T E

What goes up, must come down.

Posted in Brain Teasers
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I Don’t Exist Unless You Cut Me

I don’t exist unless you cut me, but if you stab me I won’t bleed. I hate no one yet am abhorred by all. What am I?

A fart.

Posted in Riddles

Toss Me Out the Window

Toss me out of the window,
You’ll find a grieving wife,
Pull me back but through the door, and
Watch someone give life!

What am I?

The letter “n”. (widow, donor).

Posted in Riddles

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

A Silent Z

What word in the English dictionary has a silent z?

The word rendezvous. Even though it’s a French word, it’s in the English dictionary and is pronounced [rahn-duh-voo].

Turns out rendezvous isn’t the only one. Another word is oyez.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Noah, Emma and the Ice Cream Truck

Noah and Emma, track stars with superb hearing, ran as fast as they could to catch up to the ice cream truck in the next town over. They averaged 6 miles per hour, then rested to enjoy their ice cream. They averaged 4 miles per hour over the same distance on the way back. Not counting the time they rested, what was their average speed?

4.8 miles per hour. 5 mph is tempting, but incorrect. Pick any distance, say 12 miles there and 12 miles back. They take two hours to cover the first 12 miles and three hours to cover the return trip. In 5 hours they covered 24 miles which is an overall average of 4.8 miles per hour.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Represent The Alphabet

What word or expression does this represent?

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTVWXYZ

Missing you (U).

Posted in Brain Teasers