One of my dad's favorite riddles was this one:
As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Each wife had seven cats. Each cat had seven kits. How many were going to St. Ives?
I was determined to get the answer and did the math: 1 man + 7 wives + 49 cats + 343 kits = 400 going to St. Ives, oh and don't forget the one who asked the question, 1 more person, so 401 is the answer, there were 401 in all going to St. Ives.
"Wrong!" chortled my dad, happy to have tricked me. "There was only 1. As I was going to St. Ives! All the rest were returning from St. Ives!"
It taught me to listen more closely to what is being said, and when my friend at school said, "How many of each kind of animal did Moses take with him on the ark?" I said, "None. It was Noah on the ark, not Moses."
My dad also liked tongue twisters such as these:
-- She sells seashells by the seashore.
-- Rubber baby buggy bumpers.
-- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
-- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
These are trite now, but they were real knee-slappers back in the day.
I am a bit more cerebral than my dad, who also liked to say "Pull my finger."
I am more the type to wonder aloud whether, if T.S. Eliot had lived in Rochester,New York, J. Alfred Prufrock would have said, "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Lake Ontario." Stuff like that.
The commonality is that we both have (or in his case, had) weird aspects to our personalities, so much so that my mother often said to each of us, "Everybody's crazy except me and thee, and even thee is a little bit crazy."
I grow old ... I grow old (83 on my last birthday) ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair (what's left of it) behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me....
Great poem, Prufrock. Every old person should reread it, even if it never made any sense to you when you were younger.
This is quite a disjointed post, n'est-ce pas? And yet I will send it on its way, out into the world, to do what it will, what it was meant to do from before its creation. If you can figure out what that is exactly, please enlighten me in the comments section.
Now for my mother's favorite riddle. What can go up the chimney down but can't go down the chimney up?
ReplyDeleteI know! I know! It’s what our British friends call a bumbershoot! One of my dad’s too. Good one, Emma’
DeleteI have never heard the word bumbershoot.
ReplyDeleteWe studied T S Eliot in class yesterday. The poem we particularly looked at was Gerontion. Gerontion is Greek for little old man. If you are not already familiar with it you may like to read the poem.
I have not read “Gerontion” but will do so today. Thanks for the heads up. I’m surprised you have never heard bumbershoot. Thank you, Rachel.
DeleteI had to look up bumbershoot and didn't know the riddle either. What a sheltered British life I've led.
ReplyDeleteSince both you and Rachel are unfamiliar with bumbershoot, which I have always thought was British, I had to go look up its origin. Turns out it’s from 19th-century Pennsylvania. It is considered “faux British “ and did not become associated with Britain until Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s was photographed so often with an umbrella. The British term, I learned, is brolly. So we all learned something today. Thank you, Janice!
DeleteI got the riddle! You remind me of my grandfather who asked me "If I dig a hole 2 feet wide, 2 feet long and 2 feet deep, how much dirt is in it?"
ReplyDeleteHe got me good but I was very young. 7 or 8 maybe.
And a friend who taught me a Spanish tongue twister which I have now forgotten :)
I like that you like words
I remember that one too. There isn’t any dirt in the hole! A definite deficiency in my life is Spanish tongue twisters. Too late for me because, speaking of proverbs once again, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Thank you, kylie!
ReplyDelete