If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in the center field?
One. If he combines all of his haystacks, they all become one big stack.
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?
An American, who had never been to any country other than the United States, travelled a long way to see a sight that very few people had seen. He was standing one day on solid ground when he saw the Great Wall of China with his own eyes. How come?
He was an astronaut standing on the moon - from where the Great Wall of China is visible.
As I was going to St. Ives
I met a man with seven wives
The seven wives had seven sacks
The seven sacks had seven cats
The seven cats had seven kits
Kits, cats, sacks and wives
How many were going to St. Ives?
One person is going to St. Ives (the narrator). Because the narrator "met" all of the others mentioned in the poem, this implies that they walked past each other in opposite directions, and thus none of the wives, sacks, cats, or kits was actually headed to St. Ives.
If you (like many) think this answer is a bit silly, you can assume that all the people, sacks, and animals mentioned were heading for St. Ives. In this case, we would have 1 narrator + 1 man + 7 wives + 49 sacks + 343 cats + 2401 kits = 2802 total going to St. Ives. However, this isn't the traditional answer.
