I [pause]
Clifford
riding his tricycle.
Childens - Folklore
The letters "A" and "B" refer
to the two riddling teams:
A asks B a riddle. B does not answer it; instead he "buys" A's answer
by posing another riddle. A answers his own first riddle and then
"buys" the answer to B's riddle by posing another riddle.
B then answers his own first riddle and "buys" the answer to A's sec-
ond riddle by posing another riddle.
The game continues in this fashion, with the burden of questioning
shifting regularly from A to B, until one side or the other is unable
to ask any more riddles. (page 3)
Blacking's report represents one of the more useful investigations of com-
petitive riddling among children. Though it would have been more informa-
tive if he had included excerpts from actual contests, the specifics he does
provide contribute significantly to the value of his study.
In contrast to the riddle contests of the Venda, leisure-time sessions
among Western urban children tend not to develop according to preset pat-
terns. Instead, their sessions are seemingly diffuse. To a considerable extent,
the apparent lack of organization derives from (as well as fosters) the occa-
sions in which the riddling occurs. Usual settings for this riddling include
(in the United States) the playground during recess, the cafeteria at lunch-
time, anywhere on the school grounds before and after classes, the school
bus, the street, the park, neighborhood backyards, and (in urban Finland)
the courtyards that lie behind blocks of flats (McCosh 1976, 57; Virtanen
1978; McDowell 1979, 122). Typically, adult supervision in these areas is
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-24 15:03 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/usu. 39060010034923 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#cc-by-nc-nd-3. 0
? ? distant enough to permit peer group interests to hold sway. As a result, "con-
tentious riddling" (McDowell 1979, 122) can develop. In such riddling, par-
ticipants are verbally aggressive, take liberties with one another, and repeat-
edly test each other's social competence. The sessions seem to wander from
riddling per se to material such as knock-knock routines, narratives, songs,
name-calling, obscenity, and a variety of victimization procedures (McDowell
1979, 1980).
No doubt, the flexibility of contentious riddle sessions has discour-
aged their investigation. Until recent decades, fieldworkers have not had
widespread access to adequate recovery tools, such as audio and video re-
corders, for dealing with emergent interaction. In addition, investigators did
not have the analytic tools to cope adequately with conversation-like data.
Only within the past two decades or so have relevant perspectives become
available. One of these perspectives is known as the "ethnography of speak-
ing" (Bauman and Sherzer 1974; Bauman 1977b; Roemer 1983). Another
developed principally as a result of the work of ethnomethodologists. Pri-
marily sociologists, these researchers study the organization of everyday talk
(for example, Sudnow 1972; R. Turner 1974). One of their primary contri-
butions has been to resolve an apparent paradox: that casual exchange is
both structured and the result of the participants' active negotiation. In short,
ethnomethodologists argue, everyday encounters do not merely happen to
participants; they are achieved by them. For example, in everyday conver-
sation speakers tend to explore topics by using immediately prior talk as a
context for the shaping and understanding of subsequent talk. They estab-
lish the interconnectedness of their utterances and thereby give a sense of
order to their interactions. The relevance of this organizational technique
to children's leisure-time riddling follows.
In Children's Riddling (1979), John McDowell applies ethnometh-
odological perspectives to the study of children's riddle sessions. As members
of their own peer group culture, McDowell argues, children possess a basic
understanding of how to get things done in riddling. Although they are not
self-consciously aware of the procedures employed, children nevertheless
manage to accomplish an underlying sense of order in their riddle sessions.
For example, they allow topically related riddles produced early in a session
to influence the production and interpretation of riddles offered later in the
same session. In other words, initial riddles establish a semantic field which
the children continue to investigate in subsequent riddles. McDowell (1979,
136) illustrates this process with riddles that, taken from a single session, con-
stitute a symposium on modes of locomotion. These riddles are given below
in the order in which McDowell's informants delivered them:
166 RIDDLES
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? ? 1. What has eight wheels and rolls? -roller skates.
2. What has two wheels and pedals? -a bicycle.
3. What has four wheels, no pedals, and a steering wheel? -a car.
4. What has four legs and can run? -a mustang.
5. What has three wheels and pedals? -a tricycle.
6. What has four legs and can't walk? -a chair.
7. What has two legs and it can walk? -a monkey.
8. What has long legs and it's hard to walk? -a seagull.
9. What has two seats, four wheels, and they can roll? -a car.
10. What has lots of windows and they can fly? -airplane.
11. What are those little clocks and it's in your car? -a dragger.
In addition to exploring the semantic field of locomotion, this riddle sequence
suggests a taxonomy, given below. The children supply the linguistic tokens
(for example, mustang, chair) and points of contrast among the taxa (the
major points of contrast are wheels, legs, and pedals; the minor points in-
clude wheels and legs, the effectiveness of legs, and so forth). The remain-
der of the taxonomic apparatus is implied. Nevertheless, McDowell (1979,
138) posits, the children put the concepts and tokens of locomotion in their
logical places:
class of objects
locomotives nonlocomotives
animals
run walk
wheels
mustang
monkey
dragger
toys machines furniture
walk hard 832 air ground legs
se agull skates bicycle plane car
tricycle clocks
chair
Focusing on what he terms the "cerebral child," McDowell argues for
children's unself-conscious pursuit of deep-structuring principles. Though his
analytic methods differ from theirs, McDowell's conclusions concerning
riddle sessions are compatible with those of other researchers who have ar-
gued that youngsters are intrigued by play with classificatory principles
(Sutton-Smith 1976b; Stewart 1978).
Elsewhere in Children's Riddling, McDowell considers a level of rid-
dling organization more specific than that of the riddle session. In his chap-
ter entitled "Negotiation," he examines the riddle act, the basic interactional
unit of riddling. A riddle act (Burns 1976, 142) consists of all the interac-
I67
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? ? tional moves involved in posing and responding to a single riddle question.
Riddle act organization can vary depending on the traditions of the culture
in which the riddling occurs, the accepted practices of the peer group, and
the situational conditions that impinge on the riddling during its course.
Following Tom Burns's survey (1976, 153-54) of the possibili-
ties of riddle act construction, McDowell (1979, 112) identifies the follow-
ing sequence as basic to the efforts of his informants. The children consis-
tently drew on this sequence in developing their riddle acts, thereby indi-
cating that it represented shared knowledge within the peer group:
1. riddle act invitation ("I've got one"; "I know one")
2. riddler's statement (the riddle proposition)2
3. riddlee's initial response (that is, a guess; declining to guess)
4. riddler-riddlee interaction in the contemplation period (requests for
and the supplying of hints)
5. riddle answer sequence
Each juncture in this basic sequence can be developed through one or more
elaborative moves. After the riddler initiates a riddle act and the riddlee of-
fers an initial response, McDowell (1979, 124-25) points out, certain elabo-
rative moves become available to the riddler:
1. clue
2. rejection of unacceptable solution
3. affirmation of correct solution
4. delivery of correct solution
Supplemental moves may be used to consolidate the riddler's authoritative
position:
1. encouraging the riddlee
2. refusing to supply requested information
For their part, respondents have access to at least the following basic moves:
1. request for clue
2. request for clarification
3. proposed solution
Supplemental moves available to respondents include:
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? ? 1. request for solution
2. surrender
3. challenge
According to McDowell, the children did not regard either the basic sequence
or its elaborative and supplemental moves as hard-and-fast conventions.
Rather, the actual deployment of the sequence was negotiable, depending
on the circumstances of the situation and the participants' individual and
combined goals.
The following transcript excerpt illustrates the basic sequence and its
elaborative moves. The excerpt is drawn from my own fieldwork, conducted
during 1974-75 with five- through eight-year-old Anglo children in Austin,
Texas. McDowell's study focuses on riddling among Mexican-American
youngsters of similar ages in the Austin barrio. Despite differences in the eth-
nic heritage of our respective informants, McDowell's perspective can be ap-
plied effectively to the Anglo material. Though lengthy, the excerpt below
represents a single riddle act. Each child's age is indicated in parentheses fol-
lowing the child's pseudonym. After presenting the excerpt, I consider the
dynamics and the organization of the interaction:
1. [Maggie stands; the other children are seated on the ground]
2. Maggie (8): What runs all the way around the block an' [pause]
yeah, what
3. runs all the way around the block?
4. : You!
5. Maggie: No.
6. : People?
7. Maggie: No.
8. Cassi (7): Clifford?
9. : ( ? )
10. Maggie: [shouts:] No [pause] nobody knew it. Nobody knew it.
11. [presumably in response to Cassi's guess:] Yeah. [pause]
12. Well, no.
13. : Clifford.
14. : Clifford.
15. Maggie: Raise your hand!
16. Susan (8): Oh! [raises her hand]
17. Maggie: Susan.
18. Susan: Sidewalk?
19. Maggie: No.
169
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? ? 20. : Clifford.
21. Maggie: No.
22. Lydia (5): Uh, a horse?
23. Maggie: No.
24. Cassi: Oh!
I [pause] Clifford riding his tricycle.
25. Maggie: No.
26. Kathy (8): God [pause] I don't believe.
27. : A street?
28. Maggie: No. Give up?
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
Cassi: Oh! A streaker?
Maggie: No!
: Um, Clifford ridin' his bike?
Maggie: No.
Sharon (5): Uh [pause] a goose! Ah [pause] a goosey gander!
34. : A doggie?
35.
36.
37.
Maggie: No!
: (? )
Maggie: Wha- [pause] um, no. Y'all get.
38. Kathy: [sarcastic tone:] A goosey gander!
39. Maggie: [shouting:] No, y'all are never going to guess it. Do
y'all
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
give up?
: Yeah.
Maggie: Clifford's col-, I mean, Clifford's leash. It's so big it runs
all the way around the block.
Kathy: Oh, yeah!
: That was in the book, aha!
46. DR: Is Clifford a book that you read in school?
47.
Maggie: No, it's a dog.
48. : I bought it [the riddle book The Book of Clifford]
49. [the next riddle act begins]
The role of riddler provides the participant with a certain authority. Here,
the riddler, Maggie, calls attention to her authority in several ways. In terms
of proxemics, she stands to deliver the riddle proposition (lines 1-3). The
audience is thus "below" her, subordinate both in physical position and in
knowledge of the answer. Secondly, she borrows a regulatory tactic from the
classroom, demanding that potential respondents raise their hands and wait
to be called on (line 15). In another authoritative move, she taunts the au-
dience, and, at line 10, shouts gleefully that no one knows the answer. 4 And
170 RIDDLES
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? ? she extends her tenure in the riddler's role by permitting a lengthy series of
guesses. For their part, the audience is willing to accept this arrangement,
even to exploit it. They seem to enjoy coming up with guesses, so much so
that their enthusiasm eventually threatens to diffuse Maggie's power. As the
interaction progresses, Maggie's delight with the audience's involvement (line
10) begins to change to frustration. Her rejection of guesses becomes increas-
ingly heated (lines 30, 35) and at two points she asks if the audience is ready
to give up (lines 28, 39-40). Finally, the audience signals its surrender (line
41), Maggie delivers the correct solution (lines 42-43), and the audience
verifies it (lines 44-45).
Borrowing McDowell's terminology, we can inventory the moves of
this interaction as follows:
lines 1-3 riddle proposition (riddler)
4 possible solution (respondent)
5 rejection of solution at line 4 (riddler)
6 possible solution (respondent)
7 rejection of solution at line 6
8 possible solution (respondent)
9 possible solution (? ) (respondent)
10-12 rejection of solution at line 8 and 9; taunting the
respondents; equivocation and rejection of solution at
line 8 and 9 (riddler)
13 possible solution (respondent)
14 possible solution (respondent)
15 regulatory directive (riddler)
16 compliance with directive at line 15
17 acknowledgment of respondent (riddler)
18 possible solution (respondent)
19 rejection of solution at line 18 (respondent)
20 possible solution (respondent)
21 rejection of solution at line 20 (riddler)
22 possible solution (respondent)
23 rejection of solution at line 22 (riddler)
24 possible solution (respondent)
25 rejection of solution at line 24 (riddler)
26 evaluation of the interaction (audience member)
27 possible solution (respondent)
28
render
'7'
rejection of solution at line 27; query concerning sur-
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? ? 29 possible solution (respondent)
30 rejection of solution at line 29 (riddler)
31 possible solution (respondent)
32 rejection of solution at line 31 (riddler)
33 possible solution (respondent)
34 possible solution (respondent)
35 rejection of solution at line 33 and 34 (riddler)
36 possible solution (? ) (respondent)
37 request for reiteration of solution at line 36; rejection
of solution at line 36; attempt to limit further guess-
ing (? ) (riddler)
38 evaluation of solution proposed at line 33 (audience
member)
39-40 attempt to prompt surrender; query concerning surren-
der (riddler)
41
42-43
44
ber)
45
ber)
46-49
surrender (respondent)
delivery of the correct solution (riddler)
confirmation of the correct solution (audience mem-
confirmation of the correct solution (audience mem-
discussion (riddler, audience members)
Outlined in this fashion, the organization of the riddle act is clear. The chil-
dren draw from a limited pool of moves, repeating them as necessary. They
share knowledge of the mover yet are aware that the moves can be manipu-
lated for private goals. What might not have been apparent at first glance
is thus revealed through analysis. The riddle act can be both an orderly and
an emergent achievement. What remains for us as researchers is to become
sensitive to children's accomplishments in riddling, both in their patterning
and in their diversity.
RIDDLE STRATEGIES
Riddles are a particularly complex genre. Because they depend on a variety
of communicative means, any comprehensive treatment of them must neces-
sarily be multidimensional. The intensity needed for satisfactory treatment of
these dimensions, however, either in integration or in balanced separation, is
beyond the scope of this report. s My primary purpose here is to survey some
of the ways common rhetorical strategies are illustrated in riddles. A second-
ary goal is to look briefly at the routines' relationship to codes for the con-
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? ? struction of everyday reality. A third level of the routines' construction-that
having to do with block elements and wit-is admittedly shortshrifted. Be-
cause of the linguistic apparatus required and because techniques of confu-
sion have been discussed at length elsewhere (Petsch 1899; Georges and
Dundes 1963; Abrahams 1981; Pepicello and Green 1984), I mention only a
few blocks and consider these only in passing.
In the following survey, I regard rhetorical strategies as one reservoir
of communicative means available for the framing and execution of riddles.
The discussion is based on Kenneth Burke's concept of strategies for encom-
passing a situation (1941). In their solicitations, riddles point to some of the
decoding work the respondent is to do. At the rhetorical level, this work
involves the respondent's coping with common rhetorical strategies, among
them description, comparison, contrast, narration, classification and defi-
nition, and cause and effect. 6 Although certain subgenres (for example, true
riddles) have conventionally been thought of as characterized by a single
strategy (for example, description), that characterization is not always ac-
curate. The combination of strategies is possible within a single routine.
Because of this potential for multiple framing, the present discussion is not
limited to conventional taxonomic categories.
Relationships between riddles and rhetorical strategies has been con-
sidered in the literature (Abrahams and Dundes 1972; McDowell 1979). To
my knowledge, however, the present survey is unique in the variety of forms
it treats. Except where noted, all examples have been taken from children's
oral tradition in the English language. English-language forms do not nec-
essarily correspond to those found in other riddling traditions (Harries 1971).
Therefore, I do not claim any automatic cross-cultural application for the
points I raise.
VERBAL RIDDLES
Description
Verbal riddles making use of description present information about the ap-
pearance, qualities, activities, or nature of an entity, phenomenon, or event.
This information may be supplied in the riddle proposition or via the riddle
answer.
Some riddle propositions describe by enumerating attributes of an
object. Too little information, however, is provided for the object to be rec-
ognized easily:
1. What has teeth but no mouth? -a comb. (McCosh 1976, 165)
173
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? ? 2. What goes up when the rain comes down? -your umbrella.
(McCosh 1976, 165)
3. What has four wheels and flies? -a garbage truck. (Weiner
1970, 23)
The enumeration may be complicated by contradiction or grammatical am-
biguity as in numbers 1-3 above. Or, it may engage in substitution, replac-
ing commonplace descriptors with unusual ones:
4. What has
Two lookers,
Two hookers,
Four down-hangers,
Four up-standers,
And a fly-swatter? -a cow. (Withers and Benet 1954, 72)
Instead of focusing on aspects of the referenced object, other riddles oper-
ate on a metalinguistic level. They divide the answer as word into syllables
and give a description of each. Although Abrahams and Dundes (1972, 135)
have identified the "word charade" as primarily a literary form of riddle,
examples have been collected from children's oral tradition:
5. My first drives a horse,
My second is needy,
My third is a nickname,
My whole is a bird. -whip-poor-will. (Withers and Benet
1954, 36)
In still other riddles, the enumeration is obscured by metaphor. The ques-
tion provides the vehicle in a metaphoric comparison; the tenor is to be sup-
plied in the riddle answer:
6. What grows in winter, dies in summer, and grows with its
roots upwards? -an icicle. (Opie and Opie 1959, 75)
The vehicle, of course, can vary the amount of descriptive information it
provides:
7. Little Nancy Netticoat,
Wears a white petticoat,
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? ? The longer she lives
The shorter she grows,
Little Nancy Netticoat. -a lighted candle.
8. Riddle me, riddle me,
riddle me ree,
I saw a nutcracker
up in a tree. -a squirrel. (Opie and Opie 1959, 77)
Whereas the riddles surveyed above provide description in the proposition,
others request that it be supplied in the riddle answer. The riddles below
announce an explicit comparison or contrast and ask for a description of
the ways in which the juxtaposed objects relate. The riddles are marked by
versions of the formulas "Why is like ? " and "What's the differ-
ence between _ and ? " (Abrahams and Dundes 1972, 136):
9. Why is an alligator like a sheet of music? -because they both
have scales. (Weiner 1970, 35)
10. In what way is a volcano the same as a mad person? -they
both blow their tops. (Winslow 1966c, 170)
11. What is the difference between a cat and a comma? -a cat has
its claws at the end of its paws and a comma has its pause at the
end of a clause. (Opie and Opie 1959, 79)
As a variation of the comparison strategy, riddles can ask for a description
of the circumstances in which one entity resembles another:
12. When is a boy most like a bear? -when he's barefoot. (Weiner
1970, 16)
Narration
Accounts of incidents occur infrequently in modern riddles, but some have
been collected from children:
13. Whitey saw Whitey in Whitey.
Whitey sent Whitey to drive
Whitey out of Whitey. -Mr. White sent a white dog to drive a
white cow out of his cotton field. (Withers and Benet 1954, 72; see
175
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to the two riddling teams:
A asks B a riddle. B does not answer it; instead he "buys" A's answer
by posing another riddle. A answers his own first riddle and then
"buys" the answer to B's riddle by posing another riddle.
B then answers his own first riddle and "buys" the answer to A's sec-
ond riddle by posing another riddle.
The game continues in this fashion, with the burden of questioning
shifting regularly from A to B, until one side or the other is unable
to ask any more riddles. (page 3)
Blacking's report represents one of the more useful investigations of com-
petitive riddling among children. Though it would have been more informa-
tive if he had included excerpts from actual contests, the specifics he does
provide contribute significantly to the value of his study.
In contrast to the riddle contests of the Venda, leisure-time sessions
among Western urban children tend not to develop according to preset pat-
terns. Instead, their sessions are seemingly diffuse. To a considerable extent,
the apparent lack of organization derives from (as well as fosters) the occa-
sions in which the riddling occurs. Usual settings for this riddling include
(in the United States) the playground during recess, the cafeteria at lunch-
time, anywhere on the school grounds before and after classes, the school
bus, the street, the park, neighborhood backyards, and (in urban Finland)
the courtyards that lie behind blocks of flats (McCosh 1976, 57; Virtanen
1978; McDowell 1979, 122). Typically, adult supervision in these areas is
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-24 15:03 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/usu. 39060010034923 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#cc-by-nc-nd-3. 0
? ? distant enough to permit peer group interests to hold sway. As a result, "con-
tentious riddling" (McDowell 1979, 122) can develop. In such riddling, par-
ticipants are verbally aggressive, take liberties with one another, and repeat-
edly test each other's social competence. The sessions seem to wander from
riddling per se to material such as knock-knock routines, narratives, songs,
name-calling, obscenity, and a variety of victimization procedures (McDowell
1979, 1980).
No doubt, the flexibility of contentious riddle sessions has discour-
aged their investigation. Until recent decades, fieldworkers have not had
widespread access to adequate recovery tools, such as audio and video re-
corders, for dealing with emergent interaction. In addition, investigators did
not have the analytic tools to cope adequately with conversation-like data.
Only within the past two decades or so have relevant perspectives become
available. One of these perspectives is known as the "ethnography of speak-
ing" (Bauman and Sherzer 1974; Bauman 1977b; Roemer 1983). Another
developed principally as a result of the work of ethnomethodologists. Pri-
marily sociologists, these researchers study the organization of everyday talk
(for example, Sudnow 1972; R. Turner 1974). One of their primary contri-
butions has been to resolve an apparent paradox: that casual exchange is
both structured and the result of the participants' active negotiation. In short,
ethnomethodologists argue, everyday encounters do not merely happen to
participants; they are achieved by them. For example, in everyday conver-
sation speakers tend to explore topics by using immediately prior talk as a
context for the shaping and understanding of subsequent talk. They estab-
lish the interconnectedness of their utterances and thereby give a sense of
order to their interactions. The relevance of this organizational technique
to children's leisure-time riddling follows.
In Children's Riddling (1979), John McDowell applies ethnometh-
odological perspectives to the study of children's riddle sessions. As members
of their own peer group culture, McDowell argues, children possess a basic
understanding of how to get things done in riddling. Although they are not
self-consciously aware of the procedures employed, children nevertheless
manage to accomplish an underlying sense of order in their riddle sessions.
For example, they allow topically related riddles produced early in a session
to influence the production and interpretation of riddles offered later in the
same session. In other words, initial riddles establish a semantic field which
the children continue to investigate in subsequent riddles. McDowell (1979,
136) illustrates this process with riddles that, taken from a single session, con-
stitute a symposium on modes of locomotion. These riddles are given below
in the order in which McDowell's informants delivered them:
166 RIDDLES
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? ? 1. What has eight wheels and rolls? -roller skates.
2. What has two wheels and pedals? -a bicycle.
3. What has four wheels, no pedals, and a steering wheel? -a car.
4. What has four legs and can run? -a mustang.
5. What has three wheels and pedals? -a tricycle.
6. What has four legs and can't walk? -a chair.
7. What has two legs and it can walk? -a monkey.
8. What has long legs and it's hard to walk? -a seagull.
9. What has two seats, four wheels, and they can roll? -a car.
10. What has lots of windows and they can fly? -airplane.
11. What are those little clocks and it's in your car? -a dragger.
In addition to exploring the semantic field of locomotion, this riddle sequence
suggests a taxonomy, given below. The children supply the linguistic tokens
(for example, mustang, chair) and points of contrast among the taxa (the
major points of contrast are wheels, legs, and pedals; the minor points in-
clude wheels and legs, the effectiveness of legs, and so forth). The remain-
der of the taxonomic apparatus is implied. Nevertheless, McDowell (1979,
138) posits, the children put the concepts and tokens of locomotion in their
logical places:
class of objects
locomotives nonlocomotives
animals
run walk
wheels
mustang
monkey
dragger
toys machines furniture
walk hard 832 air ground legs
se agull skates bicycle plane car
tricycle clocks
chair
Focusing on what he terms the "cerebral child," McDowell argues for
children's unself-conscious pursuit of deep-structuring principles. Though his
analytic methods differ from theirs, McDowell's conclusions concerning
riddle sessions are compatible with those of other researchers who have ar-
gued that youngsters are intrigued by play with classificatory principles
(Sutton-Smith 1976b; Stewart 1978).
Elsewhere in Children's Riddling, McDowell considers a level of rid-
dling organization more specific than that of the riddle session. In his chap-
ter entitled "Negotiation," he examines the riddle act, the basic interactional
unit of riddling. A riddle act (Burns 1976, 142) consists of all the interac-
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? ? tional moves involved in posing and responding to a single riddle question.
Riddle act organization can vary depending on the traditions of the culture
in which the riddling occurs, the accepted practices of the peer group, and
the situational conditions that impinge on the riddling during its course.
Following Tom Burns's survey (1976, 153-54) of the possibili-
ties of riddle act construction, McDowell (1979, 112) identifies the follow-
ing sequence as basic to the efforts of his informants. The children consis-
tently drew on this sequence in developing their riddle acts, thereby indi-
cating that it represented shared knowledge within the peer group:
1. riddle act invitation ("I've got one"; "I know one")
2. riddler's statement (the riddle proposition)2
3. riddlee's initial response (that is, a guess; declining to guess)
4. riddler-riddlee interaction in the contemplation period (requests for
and the supplying of hints)
5. riddle answer sequence
Each juncture in this basic sequence can be developed through one or more
elaborative moves. After the riddler initiates a riddle act and the riddlee of-
fers an initial response, McDowell (1979, 124-25) points out, certain elabo-
rative moves become available to the riddler:
1. clue
2. rejection of unacceptable solution
3. affirmation of correct solution
4. delivery of correct solution
Supplemental moves may be used to consolidate the riddler's authoritative
position:
1. encouraging the riddlee
2. refusing to supply requested information
For their part, respondents have access to at least the following basic moves:
1. request for clue
2. request for clarification
3. proposed solution
Supplemental moves available to respondents include:
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? ? 1. request for solution
2. surrender
3. challenge
According to McDowell, the children did not regard either the basic sequence
or its elaborative and supplemental moves as hard-and-fast conventions.
Rather, the actual deployment of the sequence was negotiable, depending
on the circumstances of the situation and the participants' individual and
combined goals.
The following transcript excerpt illustrates the basic sequence and its
elaborative moves. The excerpt is drawn from my own fieldwork, conducted
during 1974-75 with five- through eight-year-old Anglo children in Austin,
Texas. McDowell's study focuses on riddling among Mexican-American
youngsters of similar ages in the Austin barrio. Despite differences in the eth-
nic heritage of our respective informants, McDowell's perspective can be ap-
plied effectively to the Anglo material. Though lengthy, the excerpt below
represents a single riddle act. Each child's age is indicated in parentheses fol-
lowing the child's pseudonym. After presenting the excerpt, I consider the
dynamics and the organization of the interaction:
1. [Maggie stands; the other children are seated on the ground]
2. Maggie (8): What runs all the way around the block an' [pause]
yeah, what
3. runs all the way around the block?
4. : You!
5. Maggie: No.
6. : People?
7. Maggie: No.
8. Cassi (7): Clifford?
9. : ( ? )
10. Maggie: [shouts:] No [pause] nobody knew it. Nobody knew it.
11. [presumably in response to Cassi's guess:] Yeah. [pause]
12. Well, no.
13. : Clifford.
14. : Clifford.
15. Maggie: Raise your hand!
16. Susan (8): Oh! [raises her hand]
17. Maggie: Susan.
18. Susan: Sidewalk?
19. Maggie: No.
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? ? 20. : Clifford.
21. Maggie: No.
22. Lydia (5): Uh, a horse?
23. Maggie: No.
24. Cassi: Oh!
I [pause] Clifford riding his tricycle.
25. Maggie: No.
26. Kathy (8): God [pause] I don't believe.
27. : A street?
28. Maggie: No. Give up?
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
Cassi: Oh! A streaker?
Maggie: No!
: Um, Clifford ridin' his bike?
Maggie: No.
Sharon (5): Uh [pause] a goose! Ah [pause] a goosey gander!
34. : A doggie?
35.
36.
37.
Maggie: No!
: (? )
Maggie: Wha- [pause] um, no. Y'all get.
38. Kathy: [sarcastic tone:] A goosey gander!
39. Maggie: [shouting:] No, y'all are never going to guess it. Do
y'all
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
give up?
: Yeah.
Maggie: Clifford's col-, I mean, Clifford's leash. It's so big it runs
all the way around the block.
Kathy: Oh, yeah!
: That was in the book, aha!
46. DR: Is Clifford a book that you read in school?
47.
Maggie: No, it's a dog.
48. : I bought it [the riddle book The Book of Clifford]
49. [the next riddle act begins]
The role of riddler provides the participant with a certain authority. Here,
the riddler, Maggie, calls attention to her authority in several ways. In terms
of proxemics, she stands to deliver the riddle proposition (lines 1-3). The
audience is thus "below" her, subordinate both in physical position and in
knowledge of the answer. Secondly, she borrows a regulatory tactic from the
classroom, demanding that potential respondents raise their hands and wait
to be called on (line 15). In another authoritative move, she taunts the au-
dience, and, at line 10, shouts gleefully that no one knows the answer. 4 And
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? ? she extends her tenure in the riddler's role by permitting a lengthy series of
guesses. For their part, the audience is willing to accept this arrangement,
even to exploit it. They seem to enjoy coming up with guesses, so much so
that their enthusiasm eventually threatens to diffuse Maggie's power. As the
interaction progresses, Maggie's delight with the audience's involvement (line
10) begins to change to frustration. Her rejection of guesses becomes increas-
ingly heated (lines 30, 35) and at two points she asks if the audience is ready
to give up (lines 28, 39-40). Finally, the audience signals its surrender (line
41), Maggie delivers the correct solution (lines 42-43), and the audience
verifies it (lines 44-45).
Borrowing McDowell's terminology, we can inventory the moves of
this interaction as follows:
lines 1-3 riddle proposition (riddler)
4 possible solution (respondent)
5 rejection of solution at line 4 (riddler)
6 possible solution (respondent)
7 rejection of solution at line 6
8 possible solution (respondent)
9 possible solution (? ) (respondent)
10-12 rejection of solution at line 8 and 9; taunting the
respondents; equivocation and rejection of solution at
line 8 and 9 (riddler)
13 possible solution (respondent)
14 possible solution (respondent)
15 regulatory directive (riddler)
16 compliance with directive at line 15
17 acknowledgment of respondent (riddler)
18 possible solution (respondent)
19 rejection of solution at line 18 (respondent)
20 possible solution (respondent)
21 rejection of solution at line 20 (riddler)
22 possible solution (respondent)
23 rejection of solution at line 22 (riddler)
24 possible solution (respondent)
25 rejection of solution at line 24 (riddler)
26 evaluation of the interaction (audience member)
27 possible solution (respondent)
28
render
'7'
rejection of solution at line 27; query concerning sur-
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? ? 29 possible solution (respondent)
30 rejection of solution at line 29 (riddler)
31 possible solution (respondent)
32 rejection of solution at line 31 (riddler)
33 possible solution (respondent)
34 possible solution (respondent)
35 rejection of solution at line 33 and 34 (riddler)
36 possible solution (? ) (respondent)
37 request for reiteration of solution at line 36; rejection
of solution at line 36; attempt to limit further guess-
ing (? ) (riddler)
38 evaluation of solution proposed at line 33 (audience
member)
39-40 attempt to prompt surrender; query concerning surren-
der (riddler)
41
42-43
44
ber)
45
ber)
46-49
surrender (respondent)
delivery of the correct solution (riddler)
confirmation of the correct solution (audience mem-
confirmation of the correct solution (audience mem-
discussion (riddler, audience members)
Outlined in this fashion, the organization of the riddle act is clear. The chil-
dren draw from a limited pool of moves, repeating them as necessary. They
share knowledge of the mover yet are aware that the moves can be manipu-
lated for private goals. What might not have been apparent at first glance
is thus revealed through analysis. The riddle act can be both an orderly and
an emergent achievement. What remains for us as researchers is to become
sensitive to children's accomplishments in riddling, both in their patterning
and in their diversity.
RIDDLE STRATEGIES
Riddles are a particularly complex genre. Because they depend on a variety
of communicative means, any comprehensive treatment of them must neces-
sarily be multidimensional. The intensity needed for satisfactory treatment of
these dimensions, however, either in integration or in balanced separation, is
beyond the scope of this report. s My primary purpose here is to survey some
of the ways common rhetorical strategies are illustrated in riddles. A second-
ary goal is to look briefly at the routines' relationship to codes for the con-
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? ? struction of everyday reality. A third level of the routines' construction-that
having to do with block elements and wit-is admittedly shortshrifted. Be-
cause of the linguistic apparatus required and because techniques of confu-
sion have been discussed at length elsewhere (Petsch 1899; Georges and
Dundes 1963; Abrahams 1981; Pepicello and Green 1984), I mention only a
few blocks and consider these only in passing.
In the following survey, I regard rhetorical strategies as one reservoir
of communicative means available for the framing and execution of riddles.
The discussion is based on Kenneth Burke's concept of strategies for encom-
passing a situation (1941). In their solicitations, riddles point to some of the
decoding work the respondent is to do. At the rhetorical level, this work
involves the respondent's coping with common rhetorical strategies, among
them description, comparison, contrast, narration, classification and defi-
nition, and cause and effect. 6 Although certain subgenres (for example, true
riddles) have conventionally been thought of as characterized by a single
strategy (for example, description), that characterization is not always ac-
curate. The combination of strategies is possible within a single routine.
Because of this potential for multiple framing, the present discussion is not
limited to conventional taxonomic categories.
Relationships between riddles and rhetorical strategies has been con-
sidered in the literature (Abrahams and Dundes 1972; McDowell 1979). To
my knowledge, however, the present survey is unique in the variety of forms
it treats. Except where noted, all examples have been taken from children's
oral tradition in the English language. English-language forms do not nec-
essarily correspond to those found in other riddling traditions (Harries 1971).
Therefore, I do not claim any automatic cross-cultural application for the
points I raise.
VERBAL RIDDLES
Description
Verbal riddles making use of description present information about the ap-
pearance, qualities, activities, or nature of an entity, phenomenon, or event.
This information may be supplied in the riddle proposition or via the riddle
answer.
Some riddle propositions describe by enumerating attributes of an
object. Too little information, however, is provided for the object to be rec-
ognized easily:
1. What has teeth but no mouth? -a comb. (McCosh 1976, 165)
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? ? 2. What goes up when the rain comes down? -your umbrella.
(McCosh 1976, 165)
3. What has four wheels and flies? -a garbage truck. (Weiner
1970, 23)
The enumeration may be complicated by contradiction or grammatical am-
biguity as in numbers 1-3 above. Or, it may engage in substitution, replac-
ing commonplace descriptors with unusual ones:
4. What has
Two lookers,
Two hookers,
Four down-hangers,
Four up-standers,
And a fly-swatter? -a cow. (Withers and Benet 1954, 72)
Instead of focusing on aspects of the referenced object, other riddles oper-
ate on a metalinguistic level. They divide the answer as word into syllables
and give a description of each. Although Abrahams and Dundes (1972, 135)
have identified the "word charade" as primarily a literary form of riddle,
examples have been collected from children's oral tradition:
5. My first drives a horse,
My second is needy,
My third is a nickname,
My whole is a bird. -whip-poor-will. (Withers and Benet
1954, 36)
In still other riddles, the enumeration is obscured by metaphor. The ques-
tion provides the vehicle in a metaphoric comparison; the tenor is to be sup-
plied in the riddle answer:
6. What grows in winter, dies in summer, and grows with its
roots upwards? -an icicle. (Opie and Opie 1959, 75)
The vehicle, of course, can vary the amount of descriptive information it
provides:
7. Little Nancy Netticoat,
Wears a white petticoat,
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? ? The longer she lives
The shorter she grows,
Little Nancy Netticoat. -a lighted candle.
8. Riddle me, riddle me,
riddle me ree,
I saw a nutcracker
up in a tree. -a squirrel. (Opie and Opie 1959, 77)
Whereas the riddles surveyed above provide description in the proposition,
others request that it be supplied in the riddle answer. The riddles below
announce an explicit comparison or contrast and ask for a description of
the ways in which the juxtaposed objects relate. The riddles are marked by
versions of the formulas "Why is like ? " and "What's the differ-
ence between _ and ? " (Abrahams and Dundes 1972, 136):
9. Why is an alligator like a sheet of music? -because they both
have scales. (Weiner 1970, 35)
10. In what way is a volcano the same as a mad person? -they
both blow their tops. (Winslow 1966c, 170)
11. What is the difference between a cat and a comma? -a cat has
its claws at the end of its paws and a comma has its pause at the
end of a clause. (Opie and Opie 1959, 79)
As a variation of the comparison strategy, riddles can ask for a description
of the circumstances in which one entity resembles another:
12. When is a boy most like a bear? -when he's barefoot. (Weiner
1970, 16)
Narration
Accounts of incidents occur infrequently in modern riddles, but some have
been collected from children:
13. Whitey saw Whitey in Whitey.
Whitey sent Whitey to drive
Whitey out of Whitey. -Mr. White sent a white dog to drive a
white cow out of his cotton field. (Withers and Benet 1954, 72; see
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