Fwd: "HELP" with riddle
Cormac N Eubanks
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From: HAAS ()
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: RE: "HELP" with riddle
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Date: 25 Sep 1995 13:59:25 GMT
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My friends have been working on this riddle for several days... I was
wondering if anyone has the answer. If you can, please explain your
conclusion. Thanks in advance.
"If he saw the sawdust he would'nt have killed himself."
The only hints that I have are:
- He is the smallest man in the world.
- He works in the circus.
- He was taking a nap just before he saw the sawdust.
- The sawdust had come from a kane.
Matthew A Blum
>My friends have been working on this riddle for several days... I was
>wondering if anyone has the answer. If you can, please explain your
>conclusion. Thanks in advance.
>"If he saw the sawdust he would'nt have killed himself."
>The only hints that I have are:
>- He is the smallest man in the world.
>- He works in the circus.
>- He was taking a nap just before he saw the sawdust.
>- The sawdust had come from a kane.
This is in the FAQ, but what the hey.
There's another midget in the circus, who is jealous because he's not
the smallest man in the world. So, while our hero slept, the second
man sawed enough off our hero's cane so that, when he awoke and tried
to walk, his cane (which appeared normal to him, because he didn't see
the sawdust) was too short. He therefore concluded he must have grown
in his sleep, and therefore wasn't the smallest man in the world
anymore. So he killed himself.
--Matt
Cormac N Eubanks
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Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 08:43:36 -0400
From: d...@cae.ca (Pierre Baillargeon)
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To: ce...@andrew.cmu.edu (Cormac N Eubanks)
Subject: Re: Fwd: "HELP" with riddle
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
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In article <ckNpcIa00iV3A=ZI...@andrew.cmu.edu> you wrote:
: My friends have been working on this riddle for several days... I was
: wondering if anyone has the answer. If you can, please explain your
: conclusion. Thanks in advance.
: "If he saw the sawdust he would'nt have killed himself."
: The only hints that I have are:
: - He is the smallest man in the world.
: - He works in the circus.
: - He was taking a nap just before he saw the sawdust.
: - The sawdust had come from a kane.
He is blind. The cane being cut-off, he thought he had suddenly grown, which
would make him loose his job, thus he killed himself.
Michael McMullin
<snip>
>"If he saw the sawdust he would'nt have killed himself."
>
>The only hints that I have are:
>
>- He is the smallest man in the world.
>- He works in the circus.
>- He was taking a nap just before he saw the sawdust.
>- The sawdust had come from a kane.
>
>
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
Each morning he measured himself against the cane to make sure
he hadn't grown. A jealous rival planed off part of the bottom of the
cane so that next morning he found himself taller than it was.
Thinking he had grown and no longer had his claim to fame he killed
himself.
Chris Cole
>My friends have been working on this riddle for several days... I was
>wondering if anyone has the answer. If you can, please explain your
>conclusion. Thanks in advance.
>
>
>The only hints that I have are:
>
>- He is the smallest man in the world.
>- He works in the circus.
>- He was taking a nap just before he saw the sawdust.
>- The sawdust had come from a kane.
>
==> logic/situation.puzzles.s <==
Jed's List of Situation Puzzles
(with answers)
"A man lies dead in a room with fifty-three bicycles in front of him.
What happened?"
This is a list of what I refer to (for lack of a better name) as situation
puzzles. In the game of situation puzzles, a situation like the one above is
presented to a group of players, who must then try to find out more about the
situation by asking further questions. The person who initially presented
the situation can only answer "yes" or "no" to questions (or occasionally
"irrelevant" or "doesn't matter").
My list has been divided into two sections. Section 1 consists of
situation puzzles which are set in a realistic world; the situations could
all actually occur. Section 2 consists of puzzles which involve double
meanings for one or more words and those which could not possibly take place
in reality as we know it, plus a few miscellaneous others.
See the end of the list for more notes and comments.
This version of the list contains answers to the puzzles, as well as
variants.
[snip snip]
1.17. A man is dead in a room with a small pile of pieces of wood and
sawdust in one corner. (from "Coroner's Inquest," by Marc Connelly)
1.17. The man is a blind midget, the shortest one in the circus. Another
midget, jealous because he's not as short, has been sawing small pieces off
of the first one's cane every night, so that every day he thinks he's taller.
Since his only income is from being a circus midget, he decides to kill
himself when he gets too tall.
1.17a. Slightly variant answer: Instead of sawing pieces off of the midget's
cane, someone has sawed the legs off of his bed. He wakes up, stands up, and
thinks he's grown during the night.
1.17b. Variant: A pile of sawdust, no net, a man dies. Answer: A midget is
jealous of the clown who walks on stilts. He saws partway through the
stilts; the clown walks along and falls and dies when they break. (from
Peter R. Olpe)
[snip snip]
Attributions key:
When I know who first told me the current version of a puzzle, I've put
initials in parentheses after the puzzle statement; this is the key to those
acknowledgments. The word "original" following an attribution means that, to
the best of my knowledge, the cited person invented that puzzle. If a given
puzzle isn't marked "original" but is attributed, that just means that's the
first person I heard it from. I would appreciate it if attributions for
originals were not removed; however, this list is hereby entered into the
public domain, so do with it what you wish.
LA == Laura Almasy RSB == Ranjit S. Bhatnagar
CC == Chris Cole MC == Matt Crawford
MWD == Matthew William Daly KD == Ken Duisenberg
SD == Sylvia Dutcher ME == Marguerite Eisenstein
TF == Thomas Freeman AG == Andreas Gammel
JH == Joaquin Hartman MH == Marcy Hartman
KH == Karl Heuer GH == Geoff Hopcraft
DH == David Huddleston MI == Mark Isaak
SJ == Steve Jacquot JJ == J|rgen Jensen
KK == Karen Karp NK == Nev King
SK == Shelby Kilmer KL == Ken Largman
AL == Andy Latto HL == Howard Lazoff
ML == Merlyn LeRoy DM == Dan Murray
RM == "Reaper Man" (real name unknown)
TM == Ted McCabe JM == Jim Moskowitz
DM == Damian Mulvena MN == Jan Mark Noworolski
PRO == Peter R. Olpe (from his list)
MP == Martin Pitwood CR == Charles Renert
EMS == Ellen M. Sentovich (from her list)
AS == Annie Senghas ES == Eric Stephan
DS == Diana Stiefbold ST == Simon Travaglia
DVS == David Van Stone RW == Randy Whitaker
MPW == Matthew P Wiener SW == Steve Wilson (not sure of name)
Special thanks to Jim Moskowitz, Karl Heuer, and Mark Brader, for a lot of
discussion of small but important details and wording.
Notes and comments:
There are many possible wordings for most of the puzzles in this list.
Most of them have what I consider the best wording of the variants I've
heard; if you think there's a better way of putting one or more of them, or
if you don't like my categorization of any of them, or if you have any other
comments or suggestions, please drop me a note. If you know others not on
this list, please send them to me.
Of course, in telling a group of players one of these situations, you can
add or remove details, either to make getting the answer harder or easier, or
simply to throw in red herrings. I've made a few specific suggestions along
these lines in the answer list, available in a separate file. Also in the
answer list are variant problem statements and variant answers.
Bibliography:
The game of situation puzzles is also known by a variety of other names:
mystery questions, story riddles, lateral thinking puzzles, mini-mysteries,
minute mysteries, missing links, how come?, situational puzzles, law school
puzzles, quistels (in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe), mystery
puzzles, and so on. I prefer the term 'situation puzzles,' but I change my
mind every few years when a new term that I like more comes along. At any
rate, here are some sources for these puzzles, under a variety of names.
Unfortunately, almost all of these books are out of print and extremely
difficult to find. Try inter-library loan, and be prepared to wait. I don't
know of any such books outside of the US (though at least the Sloane book is
also printed in Canada, Europe, and Australia), but I'd be happy to include
references to such in future editions if anyone sends me bibliographical
info.
On this edition of my list, I have included a few puzzles from these books
which I didn't previously have. I've paraphrased them and cited the sources,
which I hope should be good enough to avoid copyright infringement; however,
I hope to contact the various copyright holders soon and get explicit
permission to include more of their puzzles. If I fail to get that
permission, a few of the items on this list may go away in the next edition.
_Games_ magazine (bibliographical data currently unavailable). They ran a
situation-puzzle contest recently, but I have yet to see any of the results.
_Math for Girls_ (bibliographical data unavailable).
Rogers, Agnes, _How Come?_ (1953: Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York).
Library of Congress catalog number 53-5756. OCLC #1612919. The author may
also be listed as Agnes Rogers Allen. With its sequel (see below), the
classic volume on the subject; is probably the original source for quite a
few standard situation puzzles, though Rogers says she does not know who
invented the form. Nor does she know the source of most of those she
includes -- like all good folklore, situation puzzles are difficult to trace
to their origins. Unfortunately, both these books are long out of print.
Besides their historical value, these two come furnished with delightful
illustrations of various wrong approaches to some of the puzzles. These
versions were definitely intended to be read from the book, though; the
puzzle statements are much more long-winded than the versions in my list.
Rogers, Agnes, and Sheehan, Richard G., _How Come -- Again?_ (1960:
Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York). Library of Congress catalog number
60-13745. OCLC #2580602.
Sloane, Paul, _Lateral Thinking Puzzlers_ (1992: Sterling Publishing Co.,
Inc., 387 Park Avenue South, New York, 10016). ISBN 0-8069-8227-6. There's
a lot of overlap here with the rec.puzzles archives, including a lot of
puzzles that I wouldn't even consider doing as situation puzzles (such as the
infamous "12 balls" problem). Still, it does have one or two nice situation
puzzles in it. Warning: these are not lateral thinking puzzles in the sense
in which I like to use that phrase -- each puzzle has a definite correct
answer, and creativity and sideways leaps of logic aren't rewarded unless
they result in that answer. Cover price $US 4.95; should be available (or
orderable) in most chain bookstores in the US.
_Stories With Holes_ (bibliographical data unavailable).
Weintraub, Richard, and Krieger, Richard, _Beyond the Easy Answer:
exploring new perspectives through creative problem-solving games_ (1979:
Zenger Publications, Inc., Gateway Station 802, Culver City, CA 90230). ISBN
0-934508-00-3. Contains a variety of puzzles and games, most of which aren't
really situation puzzles (and many of which are in the rec.puzzles archives),
plus some creativity games. Out of print.
History of List:
original compilation 11/28/87
major revision 08/09/89
further additions 08/23/89 - 10/21/90
variants added to answer list 07/04/90
editing and renumbering 07/25/90 - 11/11/90
items removed; title changed 09/20/90 - 11/11/90
editing and additions 02/26/92 - 09/17/92
more additions (incl. biblio.) 03/31/93 - 05/03/93
--Jed Hartman
lo...@random.esd.sgi.com (as of 5/93)
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