DIRTY BIRD

What’s so funny about this? Since I ask you a lot of riddles, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about them in general. A definition of riddle that I like is: a mystifying, misleading, or puzzling question posed as a problem to be solved or guessed; a conundrum, an enigma. What this definition misses, is that there are two basic kinds of riddles. The first is where you don’t expect an answer. The second is when you are posing a challenge and sincerely inviting someone to respond. The latter usually involves a relatively complex puzzle, math or logical problem and if one has the skills and time, it can be solved. But the kinds of riddles I, and most kids like to tell involve a “false question”. As the definition states, the question is deliberately misleading. In fact the correct response to these kinds of riddles is, “I don’t know”, or “I give up”. This is the expectation of the person asking the riddle. She or he really doesn’t want you to figure it out, because the fun of t