A Medication of Three Parts

I’m a medication with three parts. The first part is the surname of someone who has been a Mary and a Maria. The second part is a vital organ and the last is plentiful in the ocean.

What am I?

Andrews Liver Salts, an antacid. Julie Andrews played the role of Mary Poppins in the movie of the same name, and Maria in the Sound of Music. It’s tough to live without a liver and a taste of the ocean always includes a touch of salt.

Posted in Riddles

Built From Anything You Don’t Like

I’m built from anything you don’t like,
You’re using me right now in fact,
I am one but represent many,
When attacked I’m easily cracked,
I’m created in seconds but live forever
And though you may not understand,
I’ll help you do well but be careful my friend,
Hurt me and you won’t withstand.

What am I?

Character (or characters).

Kids are often told, when dealing with unpleasant things, that it builds character. You’re reading the characters this riddle is written with. In computer science a char is often represented by one byte and can store any character you want.

When politicians have their character besmirched it can swiftly change the voting public’s mind about them. Characters in novels are created with a few lines but live on in our memories. And if your character or reputation is damaged, you may find it hard to deal with the aftermath.

And here’s a great quote from Warren Buffet on your character.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” — Warren Buffet

Posted in Riddles

What Word Could Be Added to Make New Words?

What word could be added to all of these words?

apple
cone
lake
tree
ridge
nuts

Pine.

Posted in Brain Teasers

gges egsg

gges egsg segg esgg

What does this represent?

Scrambled eggs

Posted in Brain Teasers
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An Animal of Few Letters

I am an animal of few letters,
Remove the second and you can’t see,
Change it to “l” and I’m a punishment,
Yet backwards I’m a game.

What am I?

Frog. It only has four letters, removing the “r” leaves fog, which makes it hard to see. Changing the “r” to an “l” makes flog, a punishment I hope you’ve never experienced. Flog backwards is golf, a game some would call a punishment when you keep swinging away at the ball yet it remains perched on its little white tower of terror while the other golfers impatiently wait for you to tee off.

Posted in Riddles

I Am Two-faced, But Bear One Head

I am two-faced, but bear one head.
Men spill their blood for me.
I have no legs but travel widely.
I make kings immortal.
I am potent when shared,
Yet lust for my power keeps me locked away.

What am I?

Money (coins specifically). Coins have two faces, heads and tails. People fight for money, and money travels far and wide. Kings live on when they’re depticted on a coin. Sharing money with others is a meaningful experience yet many people keep their money locked up.

Posted in Riddles

Odd Start, Even Finish

What three letter English word has an odd start, an even finish and an infinitely long middle?

The word vex. “v” is Roman numeral 5, which is odd. “x” is Roman numeral 10, which is even. “e” is the base of the natural logarithm and is irrational (e = 2.718281828…). Its mantissa (the part to the right of the decimal point) is infinitely long.

Posted in Riddles

From Cold To Warm In Four Steps

How do you get from cold to warm in four steps, changing only one letter at a time to form a new word at each step?

cold
cord
word
worm
warm

An alternative is:
cold
cord
word
ward
warm

Yet another option, thanks to Beth:
cold
cord
card
ward
warm

Posted in Brain Teasers

NDOLA

What does “NDOLA, PAMODZI” mean?

Thanks to the comments, it doesn’t mean anything per se, but it’s a location in Zambia. If that’s all it is, it’s not really a brain teaser, but since we’ve already worked on it, I’m marking it as solved leaving it up for posterity.

Below are former attempts to solve it.

I have yet to figure this one out. NDOLA could mean And lo, or An old, among other things. Pamodzi on the other hand didn’t have any particularly meaningful anagrams. Both words together had over 1,000 anagrams.

I haven’t come up with any other possible meanings.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Four Against the Masses

We are four against the masses. We are trying to find the one who is the whole package. We sigh, we laugh, we frown while we hope that the next one will be the one. Who are we?

Four orphaned siblings. It seems like there may be a better answer than this. If you have one, please add a comment.

Posted in Riddles