Verbal Riddles curriculum

A riddle is built so that the first meaning you think of leads nowhere. If the obvious reading of a clue seems too easy or impossible, ask what else the key word can mean. "Port" can be a harbor, a socket on a computer or the left side of a ship. The answer usually lives in the sense you did not reach for first.

Riddles often give two or three clues, and a wrong answer usually fits one of them well. Test each candidate against every line. If a candidate explains the first clue brilliantly but breaks the last one, set it aside, however satisfying it felt.

Take the clues one at a time. The first clue suggests a class of things, and each later clue removes some of them. Writing a short list keeps you from fixing on one idea too early. By the last clue, one candidate usually remains, and an easy riddle rarely needs more cleverness than that.

Riddles for a general audience rely on meanings most people know, the kind found in a school dictionary rather than in one trade's jargon. If your answer needs specialist knowledge, look for a plainer one. The difficulty in a good riddle comes from where it points your attention, not from rare vocabulary.

When a riddle hinges on one word, write its senses down. "Season" can be a time of year, a run of games or episodes, or a verb meaning to add flavor. Then test each sense against each clue. The one that fits all of them is the answer, and the others explain why the wrong options looked tempting.

Many everyday objects use body-part names for their parts: the lip of a cup, the arm of a sofa, the mouth of a cave, the brow of a hill. When a riddle gives an object a human part and then denies the human ability, such as an arm that cannot wave, look for an object that uses that word as the name of one of its parts.

"Refuse" said re-FUSE is a verb, to say no, while REF-use is a noun meaning trash. "Produce" is a verb with the stress on the second syllable and a noun, fruit and vegetables, with the stress on the first. Say the sentence aloud both ways; riddles built on heteronyms only make sense when you hear the second pronunciation.

"Screen" can mean to show, as in screening a film, or to hide, as in a privacy screen. A word like this carries two opposite senses at once. When a riddle's clues seem to contradict each other, check whether one word is carrying both of its opposite meanings.

You can break the ice, keep the peace and pay attention without handling anything. Riddles use idioms like these to describe something broken or kept in an abstract sense. If a clue says something can be broken without being touched, switch from the physical meaning of the verb to the figurative one.

A picture of a forest has trees but no wood, and a globe has oceans but no water. When a riddle lists real-world features and then denies their substance, ask what kind of object represents the world rather than containing it: a picture, a model, a diagram, a recording.

A hammer has a head and a claw, but it neither thinks nor scratches. The riddle relies on the part sharing its name with a body part. Ask which objects use that exact word for one of their pieces, then check the clue that denies its normal use.

Riddles about removing, adding or rearranging letters are hard to solve in your head and easy on paper. Write the candidate word, cross off the letter named, and read what remains aloud. "Remove the first letter of 'blink' and you have 'link'" is a check you can see rather than imagine.

"Drawer" spelled backward is "reward". When a clue mentions turning around, mirrors or going the other way, try reversing the letters of the key word. A word that reads the same both ways, such as "kayak", is a palindrome, another favorite target.

Spoken letters sound like words: B like bee, C like sea, I like eye, Q like queue, U like you. Riddles that ask you to write a long word with only two or three letters usually rely on this, so say the letters aloud and listen for a word. "XL" sounds like "excel".

"Together" contains "to", "get" and "her", and "season" contains "sea" and "son". Clues that talk about something being inside, holding or carrying another thing may mean letters inside a word. Scan the candidate word for a shorter word in sequence.

"Camcorder" joins camera and recorder, and "chortle", coined by Lewis Carroll, is probably chuckle plus snort. Such blends are also called portmanteaus. A riddle that describes a mix of two things often wants the blended name, so say the two everyday words back to back and listen for the join.

If a riddle asks what appears once in one word and twice in another, look at the spelling of those words, not at what they mean. The letter R appears once in "road" and twice in "error". When a clue about frequency makes no sense in the real world, count letters instead.

Some riddles describe something you can build, lose or share, but cannot hold. That points to an abstract noun: an idea, a reputation, a plan, a memory. Test the candidate in sentences that match each clue, such as "you can build a reputation" and "you can lose a reputation", to see whether it fits them all.

Times of day and seasons often stand for parts of a lifetime: morning for childhood, evening for old age. When a riddle describes one thing changing across a single day in an impossible way, ask whether the day is a metaphor for a whole life.

Everyday speech treats forces and events as if they were alive: a rumor spreads, a deadline looms, the wind howls, a storm rages. When a riddle describes a creature with strange habits, it may be a force or process described as if it were alive. Ask which forces or processes match each behavior.

Riddles about verbs or qualities are not about objects at all. For each candidate word, make a short sentence matching each clue. For clues about something you can draw, cross and toe, try "line": you draw a line, cross a line and toe the line. If every sentence sounds natural, the candidate is right; if one is forced, try another.

Easy trick riddles let you assume something ordinary: the number of people, the time of day, that "it" is alive. List what you pictured, then check each item against the exact words. The answer appears as soon as the extra detail is gone.

Some riddles ask about something impossible, such as which way a boat's wake points on a lake with no boats. Before working out a direction or a number, ask whether the thing described exists at all. If it cannot, the correct answer usually says so.

Some riddles ask for numbers with a surprising property: 2 + 2 = 2 × 2, for example. Others hide a number inside a word, so the spelling matters as much as the value. Treat the numbers as objects to examine, and check spelling as well as arithmetic.

Idioms usually began as a literal image. "Turning over a new leaf" pictures turning to a fresh page, since a leaf is one sheet of a book. When a riddle asks why we say a phrase, the right option names that original image, not just a synonym for its meaning today.

Phones and computers borrowed ordinary words: you swipe, scroll, stream and save. A riddle may describe one of these actions in physical terms, such as a stream that holds no water. Read the clue for its everyday meaning first, then ask which device habit uses the same word.