The Same Upside Down

A word of five letters,
Upside down is the same,
A shark does this,
But it’s not to blame.

What is the word?

SWIMS.

If you turn the word upside down it’s the same word (the W and M flip to resemble themselves). A shark swims to attack, but it’s not bad. Sharks are just trying to eat. I’d still recommend you swim away if you see one swimming toward you.

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Buried Alive and Dug Up Dead

You bury me when I’m alive, and dig me up when I’m dead. What am I?

A plant.

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Feared By Most But Experienced By All

I am a five-letter word and am feared by most but experienced by all. If you remove my first and last letters I bring life. If you add an ‘r’ between the third and fourth letters I am almost nothing and if you remove the first letter from this new word, I am your home.

What am I?

Death (eat, dearth, earth). No one can escape death, but many fear it. Removing the first and last letters leaves eat, and we must eat to stay alive. Adding the ‘r’ turns death into dearth, which is scarcity and removing the first letter of dearth leaves earth, where you live, assuming this riddle hasn’t reached extraterrestrials.

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On My Own I’m Twenty-Fourth

On my own I’m 24th,
Two of us and I’m 20,
Three of us and I’m 18.

What am I?

The letter X. It is the 24th letter of the alphabet, two Xs in Roman numerals equals twenty and triple x represents adult content, and adulthood is eighteen by law in most countries.

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Remote Cooking

You are a cook in a remote area with no clocks or other way of keeping time other than a four-minute and a seven-minute hourglass. On the stove is a pot of boiling water. Jill asks you to cook a nine-minute egg in exactly 9 minutes, and you know she is a perfectionist and can tell if you under cook or overcook the egg by even a few seconds. How can you cook the egg for exactly 9 minutes?

1. Flip both hourglasses over and drop the egg into the water.
2. When the 4-minute timer runs out, flip it over (4 minutes elapsed, 3 remaining on the 7-minute timer).
3. When the 7-minute timer runs out, flip it over. (7 minutes elapsed, 1 remaining in the 4-minute timer)
4. When the 4-minute timer runs out, flip the 7-minute timer over. (8 minutes elapsed. 6 minutes remained in the 7-minute timer, but flipping it over leaves one minute’s worth of sand on top. When it runs out exactly nine minutes will have elapsed.)

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Six Letter Word

What 6-letter word has the same pair of letters in spots 1 and 5, a different pair in spots 2 and 6 and contains a ‘u’ in between?

church, delude, inulin or recure

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To Frighten a Thief

What four letters frighten a thief?

OICU (Oh I see you!)

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Blame the Couple

A married couple is traveling by bus on dangerous mountain roads. Midway through their journey the bus stops for snacks and a restroom break. The couple is enjoying the postcards in the store when the bus driver curtly tells them it’s past time to leave. Fifteen minutes after, the bus is hit by a mud slide and two people are killed. The couple blames themselves for the deaths. Why?

They blame themselves because they caused the bus to be late. If they had been on time, the bus would have already passed the location of the mud slide.

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A Big Rig Crossing a Bridge

An 18-wheeler is crossing a 4 kilometer bridge that can only support 10,000 kilograms and that’s exactly how much the rig weighs. Halfway across the bridge a 30 gram sparrow lands on the cab, but the bridge doesn’t collapse. Why not?

Since the bridge is 4 kilometers long, the halfway point would be 2 kilometers. The 18-wheeler would have used much more than 30g of fuel to drive 2 kilometers.

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Dancing All The Time

Moving to and fro,
Dancing all the time.
Only to be moved by others
To allow them to pass by.

What am I?

A door.

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