Riddles & Brain Teasers

[MrKaplansGlasses]

Does anyone know any good ones? DH and I live an exciting life and have been trying some brainteasers out on each other. I appear to have run out now but I want some really tricky ones to get him with tomorrow if anyone can help!

and my favourite from childhood......

You live in a house where all sides face South. What colour is the bear that walks past your window?

Teapot.

What is greater than God,
more evil than the devil,
the poor have it,
the rich need it,
and if you eat it, you'll die?

Nothing.

What starts with e, ends with e, and has one letter in the middle?

The person who makes it doesn't need it.
The person who buys it doesn't want it.
The person who uses it doesn't know they’re using it.

What is it?

A coffin.

I can't remember the answer to the albatross one - he could tell the food was poisoned?

Is it a coffin Pavlovian ?

The bear is white (polar bear at the North Pole)

Yes, a coffin.

EnvelopE has a letter in it.

I don't think the albatross is fair as a riddle - it's really one of those lateral thinking questions where you can ask yes/no questions in order to work towards the answer. In this case, you need to find out something that happened to the man in his past.

Once you have it, you want to share it. Once you share it, you don’t have it.

I'm guessing the answer is: a secret.

frangipani I just read that to my husband and his answer was 'a tit'. Ha ha. His logic was 'well, sometimes they have milk in them and you put milk in tea.'

A man is lying dead on a bed. The legs of the bed have been sawn off. He lives in a bungalow. Outside the bungalow is another man, jumping up and down on a pogo stick, looking gleefully through the window at the dead man and shouting “yippee!!!”

Why is he so happy?

This is a bit contrived, but here's my first attempt: the pogo stick man loves bouncing and when he learnt years ago that this other man had a low bed he was keen to bounce on it, as he could do so without hitting the ceiling. He had been told "you'll bounce on this bed over my dead body!"

I'm guessing that's not right. Did the dead man have something unusual about his appearance or body?

DadDadDad I’m afraid you are incorrect.

Did the dead man have something unusual about his appearance or body?

Indeed he did...

Did the dead man have a wooden leg? Or no legs?

Was the dead man a giant?

While we're puzzling over the bungalow conundrum, here's one I like:

The bus-stop

You are the proud owner of a two-seater sports car and you are driving to the nearby town. It is pouring with rain and as you queue in the traffic you can see up ahead three people waiting at the bus stop heading to the same place as you.

One is an old friend. She once saved your life and is heading to the hospital where she works.

One is a man you know. You are hopeful that romance might blossom between you if given the opportunity.

One is your elderly aunt. She is going to an appointment for minor surgery at the hospital.

None of them has an umbrella, but you have one resting on the empty (and dry) passenger seat next to you. In a moment, you will be able to pull into the bus stop. What should you do then?

I like that one too - I won't spoil it.

A mother and father had four daughters. They all had a brother each. How many people are in the family
^Nine.

Seven in the immediate family. But if everyone has a brother there are two uncles also.^

If you're going to include the uncles in the family, then we have to consider the parents too surely? Do we go 13, or do we just shout at the riddler about leaving out essential information? Also we don't actually know that all the brothers even of the children are the same brother, they could be different brothers (each via marriage say which either would or wouldn't increase the number in the family depending on your view of the word family)

Occam's razor clearly says 7 is the answer, uncles are not normally part of a "family".

@DadDadDad

Send your old friend to hospital with aunt. Stand at bus stop with the man, share the umbrella with him in hope something blossoms?

The bungalow has fried my brain!

I can't remember the answer to the albatross one - he could tell the food was poisoned?

The man was a sailor when he was young and was shipwrecked with four other sailors. They floated on the raft for days with no water or supplies. One morning the man woke to find that one of the other passengers was missing and one of the remaining men was eating something. He said that he had caught an albatross and offered for the others to eat some. The man suspected but couldn't prove that it was the other passenger. Eventually they were rescued and the man lived in suspicion until that day in the restaurant. After tasting the soup, he realised that it did not taste the same as that day on the life raft. The man realised that he had eaten human flesh, and overwhelmed with disgust, drove off the cliff and killed himself.

I agree with Dad. Many people don't like it, because the answer is very obscure and the riddle itself is quite open-ended.

I can't remember the answer to the albatross one - he could tell the food was poisoned?

The man was a sailor when he was young and was shipwrecked with four other sailors. They floated on the raft for days with no water or supplies. One morning the man woke to find that one of the other passengers was missing and one of the remaining men was eating something. He said that he had caught an albatross and offered for the others to eat some. The man suspected but couldn't prove that it was the other passenger. Eventually they were rescued and the man lived in suspicion until that day in the restaurant. After tasting the soup, he realised that it did not taste the same as that day on the life raft. The man realised that he had eaten human flesh, and overwhelmed with disgust, drove off the cliff and killed himself.

I agree with Dad. Many people don't like it, because the answer is very obscure and the riddle itself is quite open-ended.

The dead man was not a giant. He did have legs.