Two Hours Ago

If two hours ago it was as long after one o’clock in the afternoon as it was before one o’clock in the morning, what time is it right now?

9pm (or 21:00). There are 12 hours between 1pm and 1am, so 6 hours after 1am is halfway. 6 hours + 1pm equals 7pm. In order for 7pm to be 2 hours behind the current time, it must be 9pm.

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

Pushing Car Past Hotel Lands You in Jail

A man pushes his car by a hotel and gets sent to jail. Why?

The man is playing monopoly, and landed on the Go To Jail space. An alternative version of this is, “A man stops his car in front of a hotel and immediately knows he is bankrupt.” The answer is the same, that he’s playing Monopoly, but this time he landed on a space with a hotel and didn’t have enough money to pay the bill.

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Gentle Touch

What force and strength cannot get through,
I, with a gentle touch, can do.
And many in the street would stand,
were I not a friend at hand.

A key.

Posted in Riddles

Never Resting, Never Still

Never resting, never still,
Silently moving from hill to hill,
I do not walk, run or trot,
But all is cool where I am not.

What am I?

Sunlight (or sunshine).

Posted in Riddles
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Made of Ten But Two We Make

Made of ten but two we make,
When assembled others quake,
Five apart and we are weak,
Five together havoc wreak.

What are we?

A fist.

Posted in Riddles

Banana Dresser Grammar

What do these words have in common?

1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess

If you move the first letter to the end of the word, it forms the same word backwards. Banana = ananab, dresser = resserd, and so on.

Posted in Brain Teasers

What Looks Like Food

What looks like food, tastes like food, smells like food, sounds like food when you cook it, is grown in dirt like food, fills up your stomach like food, but is not food?

A poisonous mushroom. Since some types of mushrooms are edible, it can be very hard to distinguish between a safe mushroom and one that will kill you. Food is defined as a substance consumed to provide nutrition, therefore a poisonous mushroom that kills you doesn’t qualify as food, even though it shares all of the traits of a regular mushroom.

Other valid answers include anything that’s edible, resembles food, but is poisonous.

Posted in Riddles

PINE Rebus

 P
INE

Pine cone (pine in the shape of a cone).

Posted in Riddles
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Leaves That Don’t Fall

I have wood but no bark,
And leaves that don’t fall,
I am made up of branches,
and come in sizes of all.

I am completely devoured many times,
over and over by a worm of a kind.
If you want to know the answer of mine,
look for the secret that I’ve stored inside.

What am I?

A library or bookstore.

Posted in Riddles
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