Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Conundrums


Main Entry: co·nun·drum
Pronunciation: \kə-ˈnən-drəm\
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1645

1: a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun

2 a: a question or problem having only a conjectural answer b: an intricate and difficult problem


I like the way this word rolls around the tongue! Here is an example of one type of a conundrum:

The master of a country house called his servants by their title, i.e., butler, maid, cook, etc. and not politely by their first name, which was standard practice in society in the Victorian era.

One day a maid took matters into her own hands and said to her master, "Sir, I demand, I am a maid named Iris."

What was rather peculiar about that statement?

I will give the answer to this later this week. Meantime, let's see how many of you can figure the correct answer out!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh! I am so excited...you can read the statement forward OR backward and it says the same thing :-) How Fun!

Nancy said...

Is'nt that called a "palindrome"? Numbers or words that can be read forward and backwards, such as 404 or dad or mom or your sentence.:o)

Beanball said...

You are both correct!

Beanball said...

and good grief, Mamapua! What on earth are you doing up at 3:23 AM?????

Beth said...

How did you EVER figure that out? I would never think to check that...I'm impressed!

Anonymous said...

Shoot, I replied too late - people already guessed it....

Nancy said...

Insomnia strikes again....:o(