What Boys Use, Girls Like and Parents Hate

Boys use it, girls like it, parents hate it. What is this 5-letter word?

The phone.

Posted in Riddles

No Ears and More Than One Eye

I have no ears, but more than one eye,
Cut me in half, I won’t cry,
Leave me alone and I will die.

What am I?

A potato. The roots growing out of a potato are called eyes, when you cut a potato in half it doesn’t produce any moisture and if you leave a poor potato to its own devices, it will die.

Posted in Riddles

What Every Man Has and Gives To Their Wife

What does every man have, some longer or shorter than others and they give it to their wife when they get married?

Note: This may not be appropriate for younger ages.

A last name.

Posted in Riddles
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A Voice With No Mouth

I am a voice without a mouth, throat or lungs. I know no language but speak in all tongues. What am I?

An echo.

Posted in Riddles

Always Flying, Never Tired

Always flying,
never tired,
dreamed of, dreaded,
and admired.

Cloud.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

The Missing Dollar

Three travelers register at a hotel and are told that their rooms will cost $10 each so they pay $30. Later the clerk realizes that he made a mistake and should have only charged them $25. He gives a bellboy $5 to return to them but the bellboy is dishonest and gives them each only $1, keeping $2 for himself. So the men actually spent $27 and the bellboy kept $2. What happened to the other dollar of the original $30?

There is no missing dollar from the original $30 because after getting $1 back, the three travelers had paid a total of $27 for their room ($9 each), not $30. Out of that $27, the hotel has $25 and the clerk kept the remaining $2. If you still want to work from the original $30, the travelers have $3, the hotel has $25 and the bellboy has $2. The misleading part is adding the bellboy’s $2 to the $27, when in fact it should be subtracted.

Posted in Brain Teasers

I Run Up The Stairs

I run up and down the stairs without moving. What am I?

A rug.

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What is the Chance That You’ll Be Correct?

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance that you will be correct?

a) 25%
b) 50%
c) 60%
d) 25%

This is becomes a self-referential paradox. Both A and D would be correct if there were four unique answers, but since A and D are the same answer, the chance that you would choose a correct answer is 50%, which makes B correct. But if there’s only one correct answer, the odds of choosing the correct one at random goes back to 25%. And around and round you go.

There’s a lot of discussion at Richard Wiseman’s blog and more at Lifehacker, where I first saw this.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Only Self-Enumerating Number

What is the only self-enumerating number in English?

Four. The number four has four letters, making it self-enumerating. Interestingly, there are no self-enumerating numbers in French.

Posted in Brain Teasers

In Oven But Not Baked

What must be in the oven yet can not be baked?
Grows in the heat yet shuns the light of day?
What sinks in water but rises with air?
Looks like sand, but is fine as hair?

Yeast.

Posted in Riddles