Longest Words With Letters in Alphabetical Order

What is the longest, non-scientific word to have all of its letters in alphabetical order?

Billowy.

Posted in Brain Teasers

My Tines

My tines are long.
My tines are short.
My tines end ere
My first report.

What am I?

A lightning bolt.

Posted in Riddles

Alphonso and Sadie

Alphonso and his sister Sadie are entering the airport to meet their mother when Sadie gasps in surprise and says to her brother, “You see that man in the crowd over there?”

Alphonso replies, “It’s Bernie. I don’t believe it. Let’s go introduce ourselves.”

Neither of them had ever met Bernie before. They’d never seen a picture or painting of him, nor was he a famous celebrity.

How was this possible?

Alphonso was born as a twin, but he was separated from his twin brother at birth. Bernie is Alphonso’s identical twin, which is how Sadie was able to recognize him in the crowd.

This is kind of a cheat, because there are probably other possible explanations. But we can’t have everything :)

Posted in Brain Teasers

If This Site Had a Phone Number

If this site had a phone number, I would want it to be 743-3537. Why?

Because the numbers on a phone would spell the word RIDDLES.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Shorter Than My Four Siblings

Shorter than my four siblings,
but easily the strongest,
sometimes I wear a funny hat.

A Thumb.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

False Positive HIV Test

Imagine an HIV test that is 95% accurate (false positive rate of 5%) and around 2% of the tested population is infected with HIV. What is the probability that you actually have HIV when your test comes back positive?

29%

To read more about this, see the False Positive Paradox page on Wikipedia.

Posted in Brain Teasers

It Stalks the Countryside

It stalks the countryside,
with ears that cannot hear.

What is it?

Corn.

Posted in Riddles

Robbers Took Everything They Could

Two robbers took everything they could get their hands on. A police officer saw it but did nothing to stop them. Why?

It was Halloween. The robbers and police officer were all kids dressed up in costume, and all they took was candy.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Once a Minute, Twice in a Moment

What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment but not once in a thousand years?

The letter “m”.

Posted in Riddles

ABCDE and What?

What comes next in this series?

A B C D E

Hint: It’s not F.

K. The letters represent vitamins, and there is currently no Vitamin F, G, H, I or J.

Posted in Brain Teasers
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