Sentence Puzzle?

Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 84 points – 1 years ago

Tomorrow is a big event at my university. I'd like to make a fun thing where the people of the Board Game society I am in can try to find me for a riddle, kind of a Where is Waldo in a place where there is a crap tone of people to find the NPC that'll give them a Riddle (Maybe something to win? No idea how I could do that detail)

'Tis a silly one, but it's hilarious when it stumps people. Best used verbally:

There are thirty cows in a field, and twenty-eight chickens. How many didn't?

::: spoiler Answer Ten. Ten didn't eat chickens! :::

Read it 5 times not understanding. Said it out loud, and instantly it came to my mind!

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My 8 year old daughter got me with this one just yesterday. She was so proud of herself.

We have similar one in Czechia. John Doe bought twenty mice. The next day, he bought twenty-one mice. How many mice does he have? The solution is zero, because in czech, you can say twenty-one mice the same way as poison for twenty mice (jednadvacet myší - jed na dvacet myší). Just thought it's interesting that this works in other languages too.

In French we have "Vingt cent mille ânes dans un pré et cent vingt dans l'autre. Combien de pattes au total ?" = "Twenty hundred thousand donkeys in a meadow and a hundred twenty in the other. How many legs total ?" Answer is six, because it can also be read as "Vincent mit l'âne dans un pré et s'en vint dans l'autre" = "Vincent put the donkey in the meadow and went to the other." So two legs for Vincent and four for the donkey.

We also have "The wheat, or the sheep ?" Answer is "at the mill", because "or the sheep" is pronounced the same as "where does one mill it" (ou le mouton - où le moud-on).

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You're in a square room with a window in each wall. All the windows face south. Thru one of the windows you can see a bear. What colour is the bear?

White!

Wow makes so much sense!

How tf all windows face south if it's a square room ?

TF North Pole bro

North pole is in the middle of the room. That also indicates the color of the the bear, because polar bears actually live only on north pole if I'm not mistaken.

Polar bears could live elsewhere too - what's important is that no other kind of bear lives at the North pole

You're right

Here's a slightly more subtle version:

An explorer leaves his camp and walks 1km south until his path is blocked by a huge bear. He makes a 90° turn to his left and sprints 1km east. After checking the bear is nowhere in sight, he turns another 90° to his left and walks 1km north, arriving back at his camp. What colour was the bear?

Red?

What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place?

E, it's a really mean one when delivered verbally

Reminds me of a line from the sphinx riddle in harry potter.

Tell me what is the last thing to mend, the middle of middle and the end of end.

Now that's a spicy one!

Time Flies like an Arrow

Fruit Flies like Banana

But there is not like an Answer to find in that

That’s called a “garden path sentence”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence Has more examples.

What usually has 4 letters, sometimes 9 letters, but never 5 letters.

!It's not a question, it's a statement: "what"=4, "sometimes"=9, "never"=5!<

There is a riddles sublemmy, just fyi!

Oh? Could you send a link, I could not seem to find it

!riddles@catata.fish

An ancient device for looking through walls?

Window.

What can run but never walks,

Has a mouth but never talks,

Has a bed but never sleeps,

Has a head but never weeps?

::: spoiler spoiler A river :::

It doesn't lead to a destination, and maybe isn't even a riddle, but a sentence I like is:

Is your answer to this question the same as if I had asked you to give me a dollar?

For me, unless I'm missing something, that's an easy "Yes".

If someone randomly asks me for a single dollar they probably need it more urgently than I do. And if it's some kind of weird scam? I'm still only out $1.

(No, I will not be sending $1 to people that reply to this, but I pre-acknowlege that you're very clever for thinking of that)

Sure, asking for a single dollar isn't the best use of the question. You could ask for anything, not that the recipient would actually deliver on it.

You can use this question with $100 for example.

Or 100 times per person!

This is a fun one that can be adapted to all sorts of questions where you want a yes answer.

Undecidable

~~yes~~, no, maybe, I don't know, can you repeat the question?

Exactly. The correct way to answer is to not "yes" or "no".

I fly without wings, I cry without eyes, whenever I go, darkness flies.

Edit: Another one: The more you take the more you leave behind.

Clouds?

Right! Here's your banana

🍌

I like this one

Laxatives?

Edit: for the latter

Or possibly footsteps

Laxatives works for both. A very shitty solution of you. Here have a 🤎.

Footsteps is correct. 🍌

LOL

That's a nice one Wooden Apple!

Hole?

Nope

Notes?

Nope

I think my answer was good enough even if not the intended one. I'm not guessing further.

Edit: I think mine is better than the conventional one I found online so I'm satisfied. The reason I prefer mine is

::: spoiler spoiler What you leace behind footsteps is better called footprints :::

When is a door not a door?

!when it's ajar!<

When it's ablaze.

You are in a room with two doors. Each door has one guard. One door leads to heaven and the other leads to hell. You have to choose one door and once you choose it, you have to go there. Before you choose, you can ask one of the guards one question. One of them always lie and the other always tell the truth. You don't know which guard is the liar/truth teller and you don't know which door leads to hell/heaven. What's the question you ask the guard?

Dammit, I was actually rethinking about this one a few days ago. The Video that made me rethink about it

If I'm not wrong the answer is something a bit twisted lie "If I where to ask you if you are guarding the right door, would you say you are?" Which because it's a double lie, there is a way where they cross each other

Also xkcd post about this riddle

You answer is right. I heard the solution as follows: Would the other guard say that you are guarding the right door? And then you revert it. Yours solution is better. The XKCD and the video made me laugh, thanks.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

The Video that made me rethink about it

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

What's 2+2?

The guard replies either four or something else. You now know which of the guards is the liar and who is the truth teller. You used your one question and still have no clue which door leads to hell and which leads to heaven. You have to guess 😕.

That will deduce the liar and truth-teller, but won't give you any information about which door leads where.

What runs faster uphill than down?

(Fire)

This one is kinda hard to describe, so I'm including an image. Four people are standing in a row and all are looking to the right (EDIT: On the image, the fourthperson is looking left. That doesn't matter, because nobody can see through the wall). First and third person have blue hat, second and fourth have red hat. There's a wall between third and fourth person. Nobody knows what color is their hat. Everybody can only see hats of people on their right side (left/right sides are from the perspective of us, seeing them from the side). Nobody can see through the wall. For example first person can see the second and the third person. The second can only see the third person. They know that two of them have red hat and two of them have blue hat. They are told that if anybody says aloud the color of their hat, they are free to go. (They are captives or something). If anybody says the wrong color, they are all gonna be killed. They can't obviously turn around, talk to each other or something like that. They can't guess. Are any of them going to tell his hat's color? Image of four people standing as described.

Let's number the dudes in your image form left to right: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Dudes 3 and 4 have no useful information. They stay silent.

Dude 1 can see one of each hat colour on the dudes in front, but cannot determine their own colour without knowing the hat colour of dude 4. They stay silent.

Dude 2 can see the hat colour of dude 3. They can determine that either they themself or the dude behind must have a different hat colour. The dude behind - dude 1 - can see both of the hat colours in front, but stays silent. This lets dude 2 know that they and dude 3 must be different colours (otherwise dude 1 would have known their own hat colour).

Therefore, dude 2 knows their own hat colour must be different to the dude in front and announces the colour of their own hat.

That's correct!

Seeing the Proposition from RagnarokOnline@reddthat.com I've got a similar one I know in French that can be translated:

I am a king, taking presents from strangers to get into my kingdom. Propose me Gifts and I will tell you if you can enter my Kingdom

Medicine for the plague

I have no care for your medicine

A large, shiny, red, round, wooden apple with a delicate golden stem, nestled in a square silk box with twelve tiny silver bells.

Fool! I would not care for a Diamond from you! Nor less a Wooden Apple no matter the way you present it to me!

How about I show you an ancient pond in the silent forest that forever holds the reflection of your constellation. Beside it there's a tomb from your ancestors with engravings telling ancient stories of valor and virtue. Here I offer you a place of introspection and the gift of time. It will refresh your spirit and new opportunities will become clear.

My dear Elise! I do have to say those are some of the most detailed and exquisite presents I have received to this day and I would like to applaud you for that, yet none of those presents interest me. Nore This Ancient Pond, Nor the Tomb near it, nor a Place of Introspection.

I wish you find something that will suit the difficult tastes I have dear Elise

The King

I offer friendship

Friendship is very nice but I will not accept it sadly

So would a Balloon work?

A Balloon would not work

Do you accept my balloon? ;)

I do accept your Balloon! Such a Wonderful Balloon wow!

Oh great king! Will you accept my gift of a balloon?

Not at all! I do not care for it

Would you accept my heavy machinery?

I would accept your Heavy Machinery:)

how about my heavy machinery?!

Nope, no care for your Heavy Machinery

please forgive me your highness. instead i bring you this 2007 Ford Mustang

Oh I do love myself a Ford Mustang! Such a wonderful Car!

Hehe :)

I only have some creamy nougat chocolate. Are you interested?

I do accept Creamy Nougat Chocolate, if it is Creamy

How easy should it be to solve?

My favorite longer puzzle is “there’s a naked man lying dead in a field with a stick in his hand. Asking me only yes/no questions, tell me why he is in the field and how did he die?”

I'm ok with having some hards! It's a Board Game Society some of them can like a bit of challenge!

Hmmmm Did you have to fight sir?

No :)

Are you waiting for something?

No, I am dead. I can no longer wait :)

Say, dead sir, can you answer yes to a question?

Yes!

Can you be somewhere else?

No. Not unless someone were to move my body. But I am only in this field.

Are you happy with your situation?

No. I feel neither good nor bad, as I am dead. However, I didn’t want to die.

Would I be dead if I took the stick?

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Did he die right where he's lying now0?

Yes, he did!

Was his death from natural causes?

No. It was sudden :)

Was his death an accident?

In a way, yes.

Did he die from a fall?

Yes!

Was he in water at some point recently?

He was not.

Was the stick being used by the man prior to death?

It was! The stick was used by the man prior to his death. More specifically the man was compelled to receive the stick before he died.

Did he know he was going to die by the time he'd received the stick?

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I love Black Stories, this was the first one I have solved/played years ago.

I won't give away the answer, that would not be f air

I love them as well! I only know a couple, but I first heard them at a summer camp and they’re a great way to pass time with new friends while traveling.

Lighting strike?

Good guess! but no :)

Did someone kill you

No, I was not murdered :)

Was it an accident

No, it wasn’t an accident that killed him.

**Edit: I want to clarify here that he didn’t intend to die, but death was certainly a possibility of the actions he was involved in before his death.

Is the stick relevant to your death

Yes!

So did you smack yourself with it

No. Hitting myself with the stick did not have a part in my death.

Is the stick related to your death

The stick didn’t inflict my death, but it is a clue to why I died.

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Shall I give a hint? ;)

*Edit 1: I did not enter the field by land.

*Edit 2: I fell into the field and this caused my death. Why did I fall, and from where?

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Okay, so if I build a bridge from X to Y, it's a great bridge.

If I build a bridge from A to B it's a terrible bridge.

Do you want to build a bridge?

(If the person says Okay as a part of their bridge proposal, it is good. If not, then the bridge is bad)

This is a great way to make everyone at a gathering hate you.

I don't get it. What's happening here?

It's a prank riddle. Basically you make two statements about building bridges. They can be from anywhere and to anywhere else. My nose to your forehead, Baltimore to Seattle, it makes no difference. In one sentence, you use the word "okay" and in the other you don't. The sentence with "okay" in it produces a good bridge. The sentence that doesn't, doesn't.

When you ask a person to build their own bridge, if they say "okay" in the sentence, it's a good bridge. If they don't, it's a bad bridge and it falls down. This setup is built to make people frustrated because "okay" is one of those filler words that people don't really pay attention to in sentences.

I've also heard of a similar setup where a person hands an object to another person (again, the object doesn't matter) and says "This is a bean, okay?" And if the recipient says "okay" then they have done the task correctly and can pass it along to another person, declaring the object is something else. If the receiver doesn't say "okay," then something went wrong and one of the people who is in on the joke interrupts and starts the process again. with a new object.

Great explanation

Okay, so the correctness of the bridge is there because there is okay at the beginning of the sentence am I right?

I know a similar one where you say some kind of finger counting verse, in the end you put your arms akimbo and request the other person(s) repeat it. It doesn't matter if they get the finger counting right, because it only counts if they also get the akimbo correct.

It's fun to do in a group of slightly drunk people, until all got it but one. Then it feels like bullying... :/

My sister drives me crazy with these kind of "riddles"!

-I cannot allow you before Théoden-King so armed, Gandalf Greyhame. By order of Gríma Wormtongue. Your staff.

-Hmm? Oh. You would not part an old man from his walking stick?

-It is not by my choosing. Your staff I judge to be five feet, yet no object greater than four feet in length may be brought before the King.

-Then I must speak with the town carpenter.

Later that day, Gandalf brings his staff to the meeting with Théoden. He has not broken any rules, and the staff is unaltered. How did he manage it?