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.

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What House Weighs The Least?

What type of house weighs the least?

A lighthouse.

Posted in Riddles

A Hidden Message

44 33 555 555 666 9 666 777 555 3

What is the message in this code?

Pressing these digits in sequence will produce HELLO WORLD on a cell phone (for an SMS text message).

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Loud Linda

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which is more probable?

1) Linda is a bank teller.
2) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

1) Linda is a bank teller.

Most people guess number two, but the probability of two events occurring together is always less than or equal to the probability of either one occurring alone. This problem is known as the Conjunction Fallacy.

Posted in Riddles

Before Mount Everest

Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain in the world?

Still Mount Everest. Just because it wasn’t discovered didn’t make it any smaller.

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I Met An Old Man On London Bridge

I met an old man on London bridge,
As the sun set on the ridge,
He tipped his hat and drew his name,
And cheated at the guessing game.

What was the man’s name?

Andrew. In the third line, “and drew his name”. It works better when you say it since the spelling is a bit off when written.

Posted in Riddles

One Six Seven Nine to Twenty Four

Given the numbers 1, 6, 7 and 9, find an equation that equals 24. You may only use each digit once.

91 – 67 = 24 or
(9 – 6) x (7 + 1) = 3 x 8 = 24 or
6 x √9 + 7 – 1 = 18 + 6 = 24

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One Tooth To Bite

One tooth to bite,
He’s the forest’s foe.
One tooth to fight,
As all Norse know.

What is it?

An axe.

Posted in Riddles

The Tail of a Dragon

What animal can be created from the head of a lamb, the body of a pig, the hind quarters of a buffalo and the tail of a dragon?

A lion.

Head of a lamb = L
Body of a pig = I
Hind quarters of a buffalo = O
Tail of a dragon = N

Posted in Brain Teasers

Counterfeit Accounting

Early one morning Hal, the owner of a hardware store, sells a mailbox for $25 to Courtney that cost him $20 wholesale. Courtney pays with a $100 bill and Hal discovers he doesn’t have enough change. He runs to the jewelry shop next door, where Jack, the owner, gives him change in exchange for the $100. Later that afternoon, Jack discovers the $100 bill is a counterfeit and Hal pays him $100 to make it right.

What was Hal’s total loss?

The total loss was $95.
-$20 = The wholesale cost of the mailbox
$100 = The money from Jack
-$75 = The change paid to Courtney
-$100 = To pay Jack back
-$20 + $100 – $75 – $100 = -$95

It’s easy to think Hal lost $195 but that fails to account for the $100 used to make the change, which came from Jack, not Hal. Jack paid $100 in exchange for a worthless piece of paper, so the $100 was initially Jack’s loss. Hal had made a $5 profit until Jack’s discovery. If you guessed $100, that’s arguably correct, but not making $5 in profit isn’t a loss in the strictest sense of the word.

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