No More Learning

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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? ? also Bronner 1988, 115, 287 n. 8)
Rare in the English language but dealing in abbreviated narration, "dialogue
riddles" (Abrahams and Dundes 1972, 135) quote the speech of characters
in a fictitious interactional encounter. The respondent is asked to identify
the speakers:
14. Crooked and straight, which way are you going?
Croptail every year, what makes you care? -meadow to brook
and the brook's reply. (Abrahams and Dundes 1972, 135; infor-
mant unspecified)
To my knowledge, dialogue riddles have not been collected from children.
Narrational riddles, however, which are prevalent among youngsters reverse
the pattern of this older form. Relying on the formula "What did the _ say
to the ? " (Abrahams and Dundes 1972, 136), "Wellerism riddles" iden-
tify a speaker and an addressee and ask for a quotation of what was said:7
15. What did the big chimney say to the little chimney? -"You're
too young to smoke. " (Knapp and Knapp 1976, 105)
Using the formula "What did the say when _? " riddles related to no.
15 focus on a speaker's utterance in particular temporal or environmental
circumstances:
16. What did the bull say when it swallowed a bomb? -"Abomi-
nable" (a-bomb-in-a-bull). (Opie and Opie 1959, 82)
17. What did the 500-pound mouse say when he came out into the
street?
-[bass voice:] "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty! Come, Puss! " (Jablow
and Withers 1965, 257)
Definition and Classification
Riddles employing definition and classification techniques tend to fall into
two groups. First, there are forms that borrow aspects of the negative defi-
nition. These indicate a category (such as doors) but immediately suggest
that category's inefficiency relative to a specific member (a door that is not
a door). The respondent is asked to resolve the dilemma by describing a cir-
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? ? cumstance when the contradiction does not obtain:
18. When is a door not a door? -when it's a jar. (McCosh 1976,
201)
Secondly, riddles can deal in definition by classification, that is, in logical
definition. Information concerning genus (class), species (member), and dif-
ferentiae (distinguishing traits) is manipulated. Examples 19-21 below pro-
vide genus and differentiae and request species:
19. What kind of money do people eat? --dough. (McCosh 1976,
186)
20. What kind of a plane has hair under its wings? -a Polack air-
plane. (McCosh 1979, 230)8
21. What do you call a monkey that eats potato chips? -chip-
munk. (Weiner 1970, 35)
Alternatively, the strategy above can be inverted. Rather than supplying a
descriptive definition and asking for a classificatory term, these provide the
term and ask for its definition:
22. What is a dandelion? -a lion that dresses well. (Weiner 1970,
34)
23. What's the definition of agony? -a woman standing outside a
toilet with a bent penny. (McCosh 1976, 182)
Cause and Effect
Riddles adopting the strategy of causation focus on a specific relationship
between events in time. Often relying on the formula "What happened when
? " some describe an event and ask for its consequences or result:
24. What happened when the cow jumped over the barbed wire
fence? -utter destruction. (McCosh 1976, 188)
Others indicate an effect and ask for its cause:
25. Why did the window-box? -because it saw the garden fence.
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? ? (Opie and Opie 1959, 81)
26. What made Miss Tomato turn red? -she saw Mr. Green Pea.
(Knapp and Knapp 1976, 224)
NONVERBAL RIDDLES
Gestural Riddles
Although the data are scanty, gestural riddles appear to be primarily
descriptive forms. The riddler describes the referent with various motions:
27. Hold your hands over your head and wiggle your fingers.
"What's this? "-"a midget playing a piano. " (Levanthal and Cray
1963, 249)
Unfortunately for both respondents and riddle students, there exists no easily
applied or widely accepted system for interpreting gestures. As they watch
the riddler's motions, respondents might well wonder: What specific portions
of the riddler's fingers should be understood as one semantic unit and which
should be regarded as a combination of several? Ambiguities such as these
are not always easy to resolve while the description is being produced. As a
result, respondents may not merely be stumped as to the riddle answer; they
may be baffled as to what constituted the description itself. Many of the same
problems in observation confront researchers. Although serious attempts
have been made to establish an analytic code for the study of gestures (for
example, Birdwhistell 1970), gestural riddles remain elusive phenomena for
investigation.
Visual Descriptive Riddles
As their name suggests, visual descriptive riddles depend on the strategy
of description. Unlike analogous verbal forms, though, visual riddle
answers are extremely difficult to anticipate. As one informant reported
(Roemer 1982a), respondents rarely try to answer the riddler's verbal
question "What is it? " because a riddle drawing "can mean almost anything. "
Typically, a sketch gives only a minimal outline of the depicted ob-
ject. The description is usually too brief for the respondent to recognize the
object from the graphic evidence alone. Because the evidence is abbreviated,
the sketch becomes susceptible to a variety of verbal answers. For example,
among the college students I interviewed (Roemer 1982a), the traditional
answer to Figure 28 was "a popcan lid seen from the inside":
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? ? 28.
Other answers, however, would fit just as easily: "a baby crying," "some-
one inside a well looking up at the moon at night," or "someone inside a
tunnel looking back at the entrance. " Nothing about the sketch itself nec-
essarily makes one of these explanations more likely than any of the others.
Assuming that it can be made to fit the graphic data, the correct answer is
quite simply the one that the riddler says is correct.
Few visual descriptive riddles have been collected from American
schoolchildren. There are indications, however, that this genre forms an ac-
tive part of youngsters' riddle repertoires. Mary and Herbert Knapp (1976,
229) report that children sometimes exchange visual riddles in the classroom
when the teacher's back is turned. In addition, college students (Roemer
1982a) have reported that they knew and told such riddles as children, ex-
changing them, for instance, on Scout bus trips.
At present, most of the published material on the genre has come from
the European youngsters. In her study of Finnish "Children's Lore" (1978,
56-58), Leea Virtanen gives twelve visual riddles. To our loss, however, she
provides the riddles without discussion:
29. FIG.
Grandmother can't swim (Virtanen 1978, 57).
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? ? To date, the most extensive collection has been offered by Bengt af Klintberg
(1980). Klintberg gained most of his material (seventy-five riddles) through
questionnaires sent to sixth-grade students (twelve years old) throughout
Sweden. The material returned showed "only insignificant" regional varia-
tions, suggesting that the tradition is relatively uniform across the country.
Among Swedish schoolchildren, Klintberg reports, the riddles are most fre-
quently termed bildgdtor ("picture riddles"). 1
The major strength of Klintberg's report is its discussion of histori-
cal and comparative issues. Klintberg traces much of the popularity of vi-
sual riddles in Sweden to American influence and particularly to the books
of the American humorist Roger Price. A few of the riddles imported to
Sweden have developed interesting quirks as the result of the language dif-
ferences. Among American informants, Figure 30 is often explained as "a
navel orange wearing a bikini. " Because of translation problems, however,
none of the Swedish riddles using the analogous Figure 31 have retained the
"navel orange" answer. Instead, the Swedish orange is drawn without a "na-
vel," and the usual answer is "orange in a bikini" (1980, 196):
30. FIG. A navel orange 31. FIG. Orange in a bikini
wearing a bikini (Klintberg 1980, 193).
(Roemer, unpublished data).
"
Although Klintberg's report provides very useful information, we as
yet have no details on children's development of interest and competence in
the use of the genre. Nor do we know if certain visual riddles are more ap-
propriate among certain age groups. In addition, we have little information
as to how the riddles are exchanged. Among American college students, vi-
sual riddles and rebuses are exchanged during the same interactional sessions
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? ? (Roemer 1981-82 unpublished data; Preston 1982). Does this hold true for
sessions among schoolchildren? Similar points need to be raised concerning
the other nonverbal genres surveyed in this section.
RHETORICAL IMPACT
True and Joking Riddles
Conventionally, the riddles treated in this chapter have been separated into
categories depending on their solvability. Generally speaking, folklorists have
termed riddles "true" if their answers could be reasoned out, based on in-
formation supplied in the riddle proposition and the respondent's adequate
experience with recall of tropes, symbols, and other conventions shared
within the particular culture.
What have been called "true riddles" are based primarily in descrip-
tion (for example, nos. 1, 2, 4, and 8) and have attracted considerable at-
tention in the literature (Taylor 1951). In addition, they enjoy a measured
popularity among American and British youngsters. Though some of the
longer or more poetic forms (for example, nos. 4-8) remain current, urban
children seem more attracted to riddles that are concise and brief. Mary and
Herbert Knapp (1976, 109) cite children's tendency to abridge the longer
forms (no. 32), creating brief and especially enigmatic descriptions (no. 33):
32. In marble walls as white as milk,
Lined with skin as soft as silk,
Within a crystal fountain clear,
A golden apple doth appear.
No doors there are to this stronghold,
Yet thieves break in to steal the gold. -an egg.
33. No doors there are to this stronghold
But thieves break in and take the gold. -an egg.
In addition, there has been a shift from statementlike descriptions to those
using an explicit interrogative. Compared with the versions of the "egg" riddle
above, no. 34 evidences both severe abridgement and interrogative form:
34. What house has no door? -an egg. (McCosh 1979, 165)11
The features of brevity and interrogative form are apparent in most of the
true riddles found in urban children's repertoires. Indeed, one of the most
I8i
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? ? popular of these demonstrates these characteristics:
35. What's black and white and red all over? -a newspaper.
The ubiquity of the "newspaper riddle" (Barrick 1974) has fostered a range
of alternate answers: "a blushing zebra," "a skunk with diaper rash," "a
bleeding nun," "an integration march," and "an Afro-American Santa
Claus" (Knapp and Knapp 1976, 108; see also Weiner 1970, 37-38; McCosh
1976, 176-77; and Bronner 1988, 288-90 ff. ). With these answers, the hom-
onymic play in the question disappears and "red" is interpreted merely as
the name of a color. When coupled with an answer such as "a blushing ze-
bra," the interrogative shifts from the status of a true riddle question to that
of a question in a joking riddle (discussed below).
Routines that interfere markedly in their own interpretation can be
divided into two subgroups. Visual descriptive riddles and gestural riddles
inhibit deciphering by the very flexibility of their codes. Outside of the or-
thographic code, which visual descriptive riddles do not address anyway,
there exists no standard "grammar" for interpreting individual squiggles,
dots, and blotches inscribed on a page. A line may mean one thing in one
drawing and quite another in a second drawing. Furthermore, because it is
the riddle answer that gives significance to the inscription, a riddle with a
variety of answers can interpret its drawing in a variety of ways (for example,
no. 28). Similar points can be raised with gestural riddles, but there the re-
spondent must work not only with basically uncoded data but also with data
that are kinesic and therefore highly ephemeral.
Joking riddles are the second category of forms that are extremely
difficult of solution. To be sure, joking routines can differ in the quality of
their humor, but, generally speaking, the propositions serve primarily as a
setup for the punch line of the answer:
36. What is the worst weather for rats and mice? --when it's rain-
ing cats and dogs. (Leventhal and Cray 1963, 254)
37. What's tall and says eef eif [eof] muf? -a backward giant.
(McCosh 1976, 176)
THE PARODIC IMPULSE
Parodic forms are not so much a distinct category of riddle as they are forms
that extend the humor of joking riddles into absurdity and nonsense. Pa-
rodic riddles adopt the organizational strategies of more conservative forms.
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? ? What marks them as extensions is the degree of violence they do to assump-
tions of everyday life.
Parodic riddles are very popular among urban children, and various
researchers have commented on this fascination. Alto Jablow and Carl With-
ers (1965) view the riddles as safety-valve mechanisms that enable young-
sters to express their amused, angry, or frightened awareness of the fast-
paced, violent, and often irrational world in which they live. If the routines
are absurd and meaningless, Jablow and Withers argue, it is because urban
society itself reflects those characteristics (1965, 252-55). For their part,
Mary and Herbert Knapp (1976) agree that children may become connois-
seurs of chaos in buffering themselves against modern life. The Knapps,
however, also advance an alternate explanation. Urban children, they sug-
gest, have developed sophisticated tastes in their folk humor. Because pa-
rodic forms deal in ambiguity and nonsense, they speak to children's almost
insatiable fascination with complex and startling relationships (1976, 111).
Some parodic riddles can be used to challenge assumptions about
what is possible in the everyday world. We can understand how an answer
fits its question, yet what the riddle as a whole proposes is nonsensical given
a conventional understanding of the "real" world. If what these riddles sug-
gest were valid, we would need to reorganize our conception of the world
around us. Examples of parodic forms include the following:12
Description:
38. What's big and grey with a purple spot in the middle? -an
elephant hit by a Comanche grape. (Weiner 1970, 32)
39. What's green and flies from planet to planet? -an interplan-
etary cucumber. (Knapp and Knapp 1976, 110)
40. (Snap your fingers in the air several times, jerking your hand
up and down. ) "What's this? "-a butterfly with hiccups (or, a
drunk butterfly). (Leventhal and Cray 1963, 249)
41. FIG. A clam with buck teeth (Roemer, unpublished data).
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? ? Contrast:
42. What's the difference between unloading dead babies and un-
loading bowling balls? -you can't use a pitchfork to unload bowl-
ing balls. (Knapp and Knapp 1976, 111)
Classification/Definition:
43. What do you call a werewolf in a Dacron suit? --a wash and
werewolf. (Knapp and Knapp 1976, 110)
Effect/Cause:
44. Why do elephants have flat feet? -from jumping out of palm
trees. (McCosh 1976, 224)
Catch Riddles
Using metacommunicative techniques, other riddles violate the conventions
of riddling as a particular type of social exchange. No. 45 below challenges
the expectation that a riddler's question will provide information relevant
to the answer. Here, the respondents receive only part of the formulaic in-
formation characteristic of contrast riddles. Beyond that, the respondents are
on their own:
45. A: What's the difference?
B: Between what?
A: On this one I'm giving you no clues. (Jablow and Withers
1965, 249)
Other riddles are iconoclastic in other ways. No. 46 begins with a descrip-
tive question, the conventional way of initiating some of the most conser-
vative of English-language riddles. It concludes, however, by challenging the
assumption that riddlers know the answer to the questions they pose:
46. What's red, purple, green, yellow, gray, purple, sky-blue, and
green?
-I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. (McCosh 1976, 178)
A related surprise awaits respondents with no. 47. In addition to not sup-
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? ? plying a satisfactory resolution, the riddle threatens the respondent's assump-
tion of physical security:
47. A: What has six legs, fuzzy ears, and a long tail?
B: What?
A: I don't know, but there's one on your back. (McCosh 1976,
178)
In this and other catch riddles (Roemer 1977), the respondents are set up
for victimization. By cooperating with what they think is the first speaker's
intent, the respondents place themselves unknowingly in a vulnerable posi-
tion. The trickster capitalizes on this vulnerability at the riddle's conclusion:
Description:
48. What word starts with F and ends with CK? -firetruck.
(Winslow 1966c, 172)
Contrast:
49. A: What's the difference between an egg and an elephant?
B: I don't know, what?
A: If you don't know, I'll never send you to get eggs from the
shop. (McCosh 1976, 178)
Cause-Effect
50. If you threw a white ball into a black sea, what would it be-
come? -wet. (McCosh 1976, 181)
THE ACQUISITION OF RIDDLE COMPETENCE
Though research is still in its early stages, we have found that youngsters
do not learn to riddle simply by memorizing and repeating set pieces. In-
stead, their competence proceeds through several stages and includes knowl-
edge of riddle production as well as of riddle interaction. Below, I review
this acquisition process and, reflecting the bias in the literature, focus on
urban American children.
MADE-UP ROUTINES
Youngsters acquire much of their knowledge of riddling in actual riddle in-
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