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Language riddles have words at their core and demonstrate the many nuances of communication.
They take an alternative approach to language and expose words with unexpected meanings.
These riddles demonstrate the intricacies involved at all levels of discourse and show how extraordinary words and sentences can be.
Examples:
1. Name a word that is pronounced differently when the first letter is capitalized.
Solution: Herb, Nice, Job, Polish, Sake, Reading, Lima, Ares, Divine, Begin, Degas, Natal, Noel, Rainier, SEAT, Tangier, Scone, Escort.
2. Which letter of the alphabet has the most water?
Solution: The 'c'.
1.What do these words have in common: age, blame, curb, dance, evidence, fence, gleam, harm, interest, jam, kiss, latch, motion, nest, order, part, quiz, rest, signal, trust, use, view, win, x-ray, yield, zone?
All the words can be used as both nouns and verbs.
2.What unusual property do the words FLOUR, TERN, and THIRSTY have in common?
Remove one letter from each word and they all spell a numeral.
3.What occurs once in June, once in July and twice in August?
The letter 'u'
4.Of those numbers whose English representation in capital letters consists only of straight lines, only one number has a value equal to the number of straight line segments required to write it out. What number is this?
TWENTY NINE.
5.What word begins with 'h', ends with 'n', contains six letters, and contains eight words besides itself without transposing a single letter?
Herein. 'I', 'in', 're', 'ere', 'her', 'he', 'rein', and 'here'.
6.What, if anything is wrong with the following sentence?
This sentence is false
The above sentence is suffering from anxiety, for if it is true, then it is false, and if is false, then it is true.
7.What is at the end of a rainbow?
The letter 'w'.
8.What word is always spelled wrong?
The word 'wrong'.
9.Where does today come before yesterday?
In a dictionary.
10.Name a word starting with the letter ‘a’ that is pronounced differently when it is capitalized.
Two possible answers are august and ares.
August: calendar month.
august: inspiring reverence, majestic.
Ares: Olympian god.
ares: plural of are, a measure of surface area.