Born In December

Dustin was born on December 28th yet his birthday always falls in the summer. How is this possible?

Dustin is Australian, where the three hottest summer months are December, January and February.

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Spell Eighty

How can you spell eighty with only two letters?

A-T (pronounced eighty).

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The White Liquid

She awakes. I touch her and she moves her legs. We are both nervous but I continue. Finally the white liquid comes.

What happened?

Milking a cow.

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I Have Four Pairs of Letters

I have four pairs of letters,
Leaving two to stand alone.
You’re often doing the opposite,
When playing on your phone.

I help you get things done,
With one big caveat,
If taken to extremes,
I could make you fat.

What am I?

Efficiency. Being efficient helps you get things done, but if you’re extremely efficient with your tasks you get less exercise.

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I Am Worthless

I am worthless, yet when added to others I add worth.
I confounded the ancient Greeks, yet I changed men’s understanding.

What am I?

0 (Zero).

Zero is nothing, yet when you add zeroes to a number like 1, it becomes 10, 100 or 1,000.

The ancient Greeks did not have a name for zero and did not use a placeholder. They seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number, philosophizing about how nothing could be something. Once zero was added, it allowed for more mathematical understanding.

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Shortest Word With All the Vowels

What is the shortest word in the English language to contain all of the vowels?

Sequoia, eulogia or miaoued are all good options, but there’s an even shorter (and more obscure) word with all the vowels and not a single consonant: Iouea. It’s not the kind of word you’d use at the dinner table, but it’s listed in the Wikipedia dictionary as a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges.

If you got really tricky and tried to find a word that contained the letters in the phrase ‘all of the vowels’, you probably found, like I did, that there isn’t one. But it was still worth checking.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Hold In Your Left Hand

What can you hold in your left hand and not in your right?

Your right elbow. You can try it yourself if you’re not convinced, but unless you have a broken arm or an incredibly flexible ulna, you won’t reach it.

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Half of Eight

What is half of 8?

Hint: It’s not 4

3 (if you slice vertically) or 0 (if you slice horizontally)

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Has Wings But Cannot Fly

What has wings but can not fly.
Is enclosed, but can outside also lie.
Can open itself up or close itself away.
Is the place of kings and queens,
And doggerel of every means.
What is it upon which I stand,
Which can lead us to different lands?

A stage.

Posted in Riddles

What Gives Life and Love

What gives life and love, and is there till they die?
What can hide you and find you, heal you and feed you but should never give up on you?

A mother.

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