As I went through the garden gap,
Who should I meet but Dick Red-cap!
A stick in his hand, a stone in his throat,
If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a groat.
(Said to be the lyrics to A Cherry)
I slipped down a slippery gap,
Found a man with a red cap,
He had a stick in his back and a stone in his belly,
Riddle me this and I’ll give you a penny.
A man was killed on Sunday morning. His wife found the body and called the police. The police arrived and questioned the chef, maid, butler, and gardener. Their alibis were:
Chef – making breakfast
Maid – getting mail
Butler – setting table
Gardener – watering plants
The police immediately arrested the criminal. Who was it and how did they know?
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.
A tailor can make a pair of pants from the scraps left over from sewing up five pairs of pants. If he has twenty-five scraps, how many pairs of pants can he make?
Six pairs of pants. He can make five initially, but once he’s done making five pairs of pants, he’ll have five remaining sets of scraps, meaning he can make an additional pair of pants, totaling six.
A deck of cards. You put the cards on the table to play, and you cut the cards to mix them up, but you don’t eat them. Flowers is another possible answer.
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?