Uncommon app essays: Jake Margolis

My favorite riddle is, "Together, two coins make thirty cents and one of them is not a nickel. What are the coins?" As with most riddles, it seems that straightforward critical thinking would lead to the answer. However, as the audience begins to contemplate the riddle, it seems that there are no good options. The janitor on the popular TV show, Scrubs, delivered the funniest answer to the riddle. He declared that, "a penny and a 1972 dime with a Roosevelt imperfection" would do the trick, as that particular dime is worth 29 cents. The janitor's answer detracts from the magnitude of the riddle's deception. As with all riddles, there is a "real" answer. The cunning solution is simply that one of the coins is not a nickel, but the other coin is. The answer to the riddle is one quarter and one nickel.

This riddle appeals to my sense of humor, because it is cunning and slightly sarcastic. It stumps nearly everyone. I find the riddle's use of misdirection to be very intriguing. Based on the task at hand, the initial thought of the audience is that neither coin can be a nickel, which makes the riddle seem impossible to solve. Trickery in riddles is what makes them so enjoyable for the humorist and not so amusing for the listener. Another one of my favorite riddles follows suit, "A man without eyes saw pears on a tree. He neither took pears, nor left pears, now how can that be?" Now, see if you can guess the answer.

Answer:

The answer deals with plural and singular forms of words. The man does not have eyes, because he has only one eye. He originally saw two pears on the tree. He did not takes pears from the tree, however, because he took only one pear from the tree. He did not leave pears on the tree because he left only one pear. In the end, the man had one pear and that tree had one pear.

#mexico