Getting into the Groove of Riddles
Do Christmas Day and New Year’s Day come in the same year?
When I was a kid, my dad had me spinning around in circles with the answer to that one.
The initial reaction of most people is to say, “No.” I’m sure it has something to do with the way the question is presented. After all, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are only two weeks apart. When the question is posed with Christmas Day preceding New Year’s Day, people naturally associate Christmas of one year with New Year’s Day of the following year and they answer, “No.”
However, upon further pondering of the question, especially if doubt about the initial answer is voiced, most people will automatically answer, “Yes” without even realizing why. Further voiced doubt will lead a person to answer, “No” again.
It isn’t until it is explained that New Year’s Day (January 1, 2013) and Christmas Day (December 25, 2013) do indeed come in the same year that most people realize the only answer to the question is, “Yes.”
It’s a riddle along the same lines of the age-old queries, “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” or “What was Napoleon’s first name?” I actually had a Social Studies teacher who gave that latter question as a bonus question on a test in high school once.
And, of course, there is that time-old, time-worn riddle of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” for which I honestly believe no one has an answer.
I think my all-time favorite riddle of my father’s was when he asked me how many grooves does a three-minute 45 rpm record have? (Anybody out there remember what a 45 rpm record is?)
I must have spent hours dividing 3 into 45, multiplying 45 by 3, and I think I even threw the pie symbol in there somewhere, trying to put my high school Algebra to some good use. To no avail. No matter what answer I presented him with, my father just smiled and informed me that it was a riddle. I knew there had to be a trick to it, I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
But it was dad’s way of keeping a person’s head out of the clouds and their feet on the ground. It was his style and sense of humor.
Dad loved little zingers like this. He got a big kick out of watching somebody spin around in circles over riddles. It wasn’t so much an issue of his laughing at someone else, but rather that it enabled people to laugh at themselves.
It also taught a few people that they didn’t have all the answers. Including myself.
It was a lesson, well-earned and well-learned, in humility. A lesson that many people that I know could use and one that I am eternally grateful to my father for having taught me.
And, just in case you’re wondering, there are the same number of grooves in a three-minute rpm record that there are in just about any other record regardless of time length or size.
One.
When I was a kid, my dad had me spinning around in circles with the answer to that one.
The initial reaction of most people is to say, “No.” I’m sure it has something to do with the way the question is presented. After all, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are only two weeks apart. When the question is posed with Christmas Day preceding New Year’s Day, people naturally associate Christmas of one year with New Year’s Day of the following year and they answer, “No.”
However, upon further pondering of the question, especially if doubt about the initial answer is voiced, most people will automatically answer, “Yes” without even realizing why. Further voiced doubt will lead a person to answer, “No” again.
It isn’t until it is explained that New Year’s Day (January 1, 2013) and Christmas Day (December 25, 2013) do indeed come in the same year that most people realize the only answer to the question is, “Yes.”
It’s a riddle along the same lines of the age-old queries, “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” or “What was Napoleon’s first name?” I actually had a Social Studies teacher who gave that latter question as a bonus question on a test in high school once.
And, of course, there is that time-old, time-worn riddle of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” for which I honestly believe no one has an answer.
I think my all-time favorite riddle of my father’s was when he asked me how many grooves does a three-minute 45 rpm record have? (Anybody out there remember what a 45 rpm record is?)
I must have spent hours dividing 3 into 45, multiplying 45 by 3, and I think I even threw the pie symbol in there somewhere, trying to put my high school Algebra to some good use. To no avail. No matter what answer I presented him with, my father just smiled and informed me that it was a riddle. I knew there had to be a trick to it, I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
But it was dad’s way of keeping a person’s head out of the clouds and their feet on the ground. It was his style and sense of humor.
Dad loved little zingers like this. He got a big kick out of watching somebody spin around in circles over riddles. It wasn’t so much an issue of his laughing at someone else, but rather that it enabled people to laugh at themselves.
It also taught a few people that they didn’t have all the answers. Including myself.
It was a lesson, well-earned and well-learned, in humility. A lesson that many people that I know could use and one that I am eternally grateful to my father for having taught me.
And, just in case you’re wondering, there are the same number of grooves in a three-minute rpm record that there are in just about any other record regardless of time length or size.
One.
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