On my way to St. Ives I saw a man with 7 wives. Each wife had 7 sacks. Each sack had 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kittens. Kittens, cats, sacks, wives. How many were going to St. Ives?
Two boys wish to cross a river. The only way to get to the other side is by boat, but that boat can only take one boy at a time. The boat cannot return on its own, there are no ropes or similar tricks, yet both boys manage to cross using the boat.
A thief enters a store and threatens the clerk, forcing her to open the safe. The clerk says, “The code for the safe is different every day, and if you hurt me you’ll never get the code.†But the thief manages to guess the code on his own. How did he do it?
John was going on a jungle trip. He asked his wife to pack something to eat, something to drink and something to burn if he feels cold in the jungle. When John opens the backpack he found just one thing in the bag. What was it?
The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.
