What makes a riddle what it is? We hear the word thrown around on a daily basis on TV and on news websites when they are referring to anything unknown. We hear it when people are talking about punny questions: What time do you go to the dentist? You go at tooth-thirty. Finally we hear them in the most definitive way, when there is a question or a statement that has a veiled meaning and is posed as a question. This means it demands an answer. All of these uses have become culturally exceptable across the globe and the word riddle seems like it is growing into this massive term that encompasses anything that is not completely understood. Riddles haven't always had such an uncertain definition, but it has changed to better fit the needs of a growing and more global world.
Riddles are an extremely old part of literature. They predate both the bible and the Greeks. The literature of the bible and Greek literature both have riddles in them and seem to have been somewhat popular by this time. Using this as the beginning of riddles all together puts them at about a thousand years BC. One riddle that is sometimes considered the oldest is based on a math problem from 1650 BC. But this problem wasn't originally meant to be looked at in several ways, it was just a math problem. People of the Greek era viewed riddles as both entertainment but also good literary devices to explain complicated concepts. Aristotle himself said riddles were useful in academic matters because they were rhetorically useful in that they could explain things more simply though metaphors.
Following the Greek era the next era to embrace riddles to a great extent was the Anglo-Saxon era. In this time period the meaning of the word actually seemed to lose meaning. The riddles of this time were almost limited to only those that could potentially end with the phrase "What am I?" (what am I riddles). A lot of the literature of this time was destroyed but enough remains for us to deduce that the Anglo-Saxons loved riddles. The most popular and notable source of riddles from this time is the Exeter book. The book has 94 riddles from the middle of the Anglo-Saxon era, grabbing the essence of how they lived and riddled. They used riddle almost solely for entertainment, in contrast to the Greeks who also saw them as important literary devices.
From the Anglo-Saxon era until the modern time period riddles have primarily remained what am I riddles. A property of language is that words gain and lose meaning over time, riddles has not been exempt to this process. Riddles have been seen as great questions or mysteries for so long that they carry connotations of large mysteries, a connotation that is very appealing to article writers. This definition makes it the perfect word to describe the largest problems in the world. The punny questions are actually technically right because they do have several or veiled meaning. They have become riddles even though they haven't always been seen in that way.
No matter what title you put on a riddle or what a riddle is they are fun and interesting pieces of logic. But with all of this confusion there is one thing we can be sure of: the meaning of riddles will always be a riddle.
For some modern and past riddles visit Good Riddles Now's kids riddles section.
Riddles are an extremely old part of literature. They predate both the bible and the Greeks. The literature of the bible and Greek literature both have riddles in them and seem to have been somewhat popular by this time. Using this as the beginning of riddles all together puts them at about a thousand years BC. One riddle that is sometimes considered the oldest is based on a math problem from 1650 BC. But this problem wasn't originally meant to be looked at in several ways, it was just a math problem. People of the Greek era viewed riddles as both entertainment but also good literary devices to explain complicated concepts. Aristotle himself said riddles were useful in academic matters because they were rhetorically useful in that they could explain things more simply though metaphors.
Following the Greek era the next era to embrace riddles to a great extent was the Anglo-Saxon era. In this time period the meaning of the word actually seemed to lose meaning. The riddles of this time were almost limited to only those that could potentially end with the phrase "What am I?" (what am I riddles). A lot of the literature of this time was destroyed but enough remains for us to deduce that the Anglo-Saxons loved riddles. The most popular and notable source of riddles from this time is the Exeter book. The book has 94 riddles from the middle of the Anglo-Saxon era, grabbing the essence of how they lived and riddled. They used riddle almost solely for entertainment, in contrast to the Greeks who also saw them as important literary devices.
From the Anglo-Saxon era until the modern time period riddles have primarily remained what am I riddles. A property of language is that words gain and lose meaning over time, riddles has not been exempt to this process. Riddles have been seen as great questions or mysteries for so long that they carry connotations of large mysteries, a connotation that is very appealing to article writers. This definition makes it the perfect word to describe the largest problems in the world. The punny questions are actually technically right because they do have several or veiled meaning. They have become riddles even though they haven't always been seen in that way.
No matter what title you put on a riddle or what a riddle is they are fun and interesting pieces of logic. But with all of this confusion there is one thing we can be sure of: the meaning of riddles will always be a riddle.
For some modern and past riddles visit Good Riddles Now's kids riddles section.
Source...