Once upon a time... A Puzzle
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Three people check into a hotel. They pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager suddenly remembers that the room rate is $25 and gives $5 to the bellboy to return to the people. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to share among three people so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person. Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totalling $27. The bellboy has $2, totalling $29. Where is the missing $1?
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That sounds like the way governments use numbers... Adding when they should be subtracting, and viceversa.This reminds me of a company that said they were giving a 60% discount... when in reality they gave you a 40% discount and then an additional 20% discount. This equals 52% discount, not 60%.
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there's isn't a missing dollar.. the bellboy has an extra $2.. each person should have paid $8.33 -- instead, they all gave the bellboy an extra $0.66
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How about this:
Think of a common (at least in US it's common) food in 8 letters. Remove one letter and rearrange the remaining letters to name another food. Now, remove one more letter, rearrange the remainder to name another food.
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This is my most unusual paragraph. I am just curious as to how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain that you might think that it has nothing much wrong with it at all, and in truth nothing much is wrong with it, although it is still most unusual. Study it and think long about it. You may still not find anything odd about it, but if you think and work hard at it, in a bit you could find out what's up! You know it's probably not too difficult to work this thing out and find its trick. Try to do it without any coaching! Only you can find the solution... -
@unknownuser said:
Jeff I think you got it. That paragraph is usually posed without the last sentence and the answer is that the most common letter in the English language "E" is not present. So I guess the answer to Tig's puzzle above is that there is only one "E".
There is only one E = correct !
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What common word in English (something most of you see lots of every day) contains the following combination of letters MPP ?
What common word on English contains three consecutive letter-pairs ?
What's the longest word you can type using only the top row of the letter keys on a standard 'English' typewriter ?
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@tig said:
What common word in English (something most of you see lots of every day) contains the following combination of letters MPP ?
What common word on English contains three consecutive letter-pairs ?
What's the longest word you can type using only the top row of the letter keys on a standard 'English' typewriter ?
lamppost
mississippi (or do you mean all in a row - ex. mmvvaa?
is qwerty a word?
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I think the answer isT-Y-P-E-W-R-I-T-E-R but I could be wrong. .. it's either that or
QUIOUTREUPOWEROOYQWELOUEREUOPUT....just a guess.I am getting confused in all of these riddles--Did Sang get his Dollar back after he tied up his Horse?
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@tig said:
What common word on English contains three consecutive letter-pairs ?
i gave up on that one so i finally googled it
didn't even realize that is one word..
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@dave r said:
How about this:
Think of a common (at least in US it's common) food in 8 letters. Remove one letter and rearrange the remaining letters to name another food. Now, remove one more letter, rearrange the remainder to name another food.
i got as far as :
ice cream
mice earstumped after that
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mmmm . .. .mice ear. . . .. mmmm
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@unknownuser said:
@tig said:
What common word in English (something most of you see lots of every day) contains the following combination of letters MPP ?
What common word on English contains three consecutive letter-pairs ?
What's the longest word you can type using only the top row of the letter keys on a standard 'English' typewriter ?
lamppost
Mississippi (or do you mean all in a row - ex. mmvvaa?
is qwerty a word?
LAMPPOST = correct
Three consecutive pairs like MMVVAA (but not those!)
Jeff Hammond had it = BOOKKEEPER
TYPEWRITER = correct [David_H] -
So what do I win? That missing Dollar or what?
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It was sent to the Bookkeeper with the Typewriter under the Lamppost.
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Not quite boo.
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"
meatloaf
oatmeal
tamale"Good work. How did you figure it out.
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@dave r said:
"
meatloaf
oatmeal
tamale"Good work. How did you figure it out.
you gave a decent hint.. (at least in US it's common)
that had me thinking ice cream, apple pie, doughnut and meatloaf. oaf automatically makes me see oat.. just sort of happened.here -->
1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
13112221
1113213211next line?
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That's good. Will Shortz gave this puzzle on NPR a few years ago. My wife rattled off the answer before he could finish repeating it. Made my head spin.
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