The riddle I tell people is long;

They seem to listen well.

For if it's not listened to by them,

They'll see the things I tell.

This might be one expert jest,

Yet friendly to viewers it is;

In this zippy type of poem

The word I wish for is ...

There is no clue in the riddle as to it's solution. Yes, it is true that certain letters do not appear in the riddle and can be arranged to form one word. But how is that a solution? It's also true that if you just look at the capitalized letters... TITFTITYIT, the word tit appears twice. That's as strong of a case for tit being the answer as the one purported in the alleged solution. As long as there's no indication of which pattern to use, anything that can remotely be linked to the riddle is an equally (in)valid solution.

Zippy.... Zip means to conect two strings of metal sockets... socket... sock it to him, an expession meaning to punch... punch, a popular drink often served at parties, containing fruit juice, sometimes alcohol, sometimes ice cream, and sometimes 7-up to add fizz... fizz rhymes with is and makes the poem sound complete, therefore the answer is fizz!

Penny's sign language answer comes close, but I'd argue that doesn't work either. While it is indicated by the poem, the last sentence reads "THE WORD I wish for is...", and although the sign for "I wish for" is a singular sign, it still represents 3 words. Also it seems to require too much specialized knowledge to work for a general riddle.

Posted by Johan on 2004-07-18 20:18:27