A farmer needs to cross a river with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of cornmeal. He has a small boat that can only carry himself and one item at a time.
If left alone together on either bank without the farmer present:
The fox will eat the chicken.
The chicken will eat the cornmeal.
How can he get everything safely to the other side?
Take the chicken across to the far bank (leaves fox and cornmeal together on the near bank—safe).
Return empty-handed to the near bank.
Take the fox across to the far bank.
Bring the chicken back to the near bank (leaves the fox alone on the far bank—safe).
Take the cornmeal across to the far bank (leaves fox and cornmeal together on the far bank—safe).
Return empty-handed to the near bank (leaves the chicken alone on the near bank).
Take the chicken across to the far bank.
There is a one story house. Everything in the house is purple. The kitchen is purple. The living room is purple. And even the TV is purple. What color are the stairs?
A man is found lying face down, dead in the middle of a vast desert.
There are no footprints or tracks anywhere around him for miles.
On his back is a pack, a full canteen of water hangs at his side, and he is clutching a small metal ring in his hand.
How did he die?
He jumped from an airplane and his parachute failed to open. The pack on his back was the parachute, and the ring in his hand was the pull cord.
In classic mythology, there is the story of the Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion and the upper part of a woman.
The Sphinx lay crouched on the top of a rock along the highroad to the city of Thebes, and stopped all travellers passing by, proposing to them a riddle.
Those who failed to answer the riddle correctly were killed.
This is the riddle the Sphinx asked the travellers: "What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs during the day, and three legs in the evening?"
This is part of the story of Oedipus, who replied to the Sphinx, "Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age with the aid of a staff."
Morning, day and night are representative of the stages of life.
The Sphinx was so mortified at the solving of her riddle that she cast herself down from the rock and perished.
There was a murder at a house one day.
The maid witnessed it.
She called the husband of the house and said, "There has been a murder at your house. Hurry."
And also called the police.
Once they arrived, the husband said, "I can't believe someone's killed my wife!"
The cops arrested him immediatly for murder.
Why, and how did they know?
This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is highly unusual though. Study it and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching.
The letter "e", which is the most common letter in the English language, does not appear once in the long paragraph.
What word in the English language does the following: the first two letters signify a male, the first three letters signify a female, the first four letters signify a great man, the first six letters signify a drug, while the entire world signifies a great woman. What is the word?
In olden days you are a clever thief charged with treason against the king and sentenced to death.
But the king decides to be a little lenient and lets you choose your own way to die.
What way should you choose?
Remember, you're clever!
Pirate Pete had been captured by a Spanish general and sentenced to death by his 50-man firing squad. Pete cringed, as he knew their reputation for being the worst firing squad in the Spanish military. They were such bad shots that they would often all miss their targets and simply maim their victims, leaving them to bleed to death, as the general's tradition was to only allow one shot per man to save on ammunition. The thought of a slow painful death made Pete beg for mercy.
"Very well, I have some compassion. You may choose where the men stand when they shoot you and I will add 50 extra men to the squad to ensure someone will at least hit you. Perhaps if they stand closer they will kill you quicker, if you're lucky," snickered the general. "Oh, and just so you don't get any funny ideas, they can't stand more than 20 ft away, they must be facing you, and you must remain tied to the post in the middle of the yard. And to show I'm not totally heartless, if you aren't dead by sundown I'll release you so you can die peacefully outside the compound. I must go now but will return tomorrow and see to it that you are buried in a nice spot, though with 100 men, I doubt there will be much left of you to bury."
After giving his instructions the general left. Upon his return the next day, he found that Pete had been set free alive and well. "How could this be?" demanded the general. "It was where Pete had us stand," explained the captain of the squad.
Where did Pete tell them to stand?
Pete told them to form a circle around him. All the squad was facing in at Pete, ready to shoot, when they realized that everyone who missed would likely end up shooting another squad member. So no one dared to fire, knowing the risk. Thus at sundown he was released.
