Time to tease that brain.

As both a way to teach critical thinking, a way to entertain and a way to make others think we're really smart, riddles are as old as humanity.

The oldest riddle we know of is Sumerian and is at least 4000 years old. 

1. "There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it"?  

Other riddles have no answer like the famous one from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, that goes "How is a raven like a writing desk?" It doesn't have an answer frustrating as that is. The Mad Hatter is, as his name suggests mad, and the riddle has no answer. But readers bothered Carroll so much he eventually gave this response: "because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front". Someone else suggested "because Poe wrote on both." Make of that what you want.   

Here are some classic riddles to tease your brain and the minds of others. The answers are below, including number one.

2. "Walk on the living, they don't even mumble. Walk on the dead, they mutter and grumble."

3. "I work when I play and play when I work."

4. What is in seasons, seconds, centuries, and minutes, but not in decades, years, or days? 

5. What is so delicate that saying its name breaks it? 

6. What has to be broken before you use it? 

7. What kind of room has no doors or windows? 

8. Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly? 

9. What invention lets you look right through a wall? 

10. As I walked along the path I saw something with four fingers and one thumb, but it was not flesh, fish, bone or fowl.  

I hope you enjoyed these classic riddles. That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

 

 

 

Answers:

1. A school. 2. Leafs. 3. A musician. 4. The letter N. 5. Silence. 6. An egg. 7. A mushroom. 8. Incorrectly. 9. A window. 10. A glove.