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A riddle, whose answer is or involves a pun or unexpected twist, in particular Riddle joke , a riddle that constitutes a set-up to the humorous punch line of a joke A logical postulation that evades resolution, an intricate and difficult problem.
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundra, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the ...
Persian riddles occur in several different literary forms, and it is helpful to trace the history of the Persian riddle through these forms. It is assumed that folk-riddles circulated in Persian from early times, and riddles are prominent in Persian romances set in earlier, pre-Islamic times, perhaps indicating the earlier popularity of the form. [4]
The archives of the Finnish Literature Society contain texts of 117,300 Finnish-language riddles collected from oral tradition, some of which are in Kalevala metre; [5] meanwhile, the Estonian Folklore Archives contain around 130,000 older traditional riddles, along with about 45,000 other riddle-type folklore, such as conundra, initial letter ...
Riddles also came to be integrated into the episodic anthologies known as maqamat ('assemblies'). An early example was the Maqamat by Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhani (969–1007 CE), for example in assemblies 3, 29, 31, 35. [57] This example of one of al-Hamadhānī's riddles comes from elsewhere in his diwān, and was composed for Sahib ibn Abbad:
A riddle joke, joke riddle, pseudo-joke or conundrum is a riddle that does not expect the asked person to know the answer, but rather constitutes a set-up to the humorous punch line of the joke. [1] It is one of the four major types of riddles, according to Nigel F. Barley. [2]
[1]: 72 Next come twenty riddles and similar conundra in rhymed prose. The collection closes with twenty charades (aḥājī). [1]: 72 In Papoutsakis's assessment, 'Zaynaddīn’s work attests to the efflorescence of the literary riddle in Ayyubid Syria and the popularity it enjoyed at Ayyubid courts and in elite circles in general'.
Steve Selvin wrote a letter to the American Statistician in 1975, describing a problem based on the game show Let's Make a Deal, [1] dubbing it the "Monty Hall problem" in a subsequent letter. [2]