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 Post subject: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 8:39 am 
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Ah, the old riddle with no answer from The Last Unicorn. I love that book

:-D

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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 9:19 am 
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Alice in Wonderland = 1865
Quote: "The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he SAID was, 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'"
Answer provided by Lewis Carrol in the preface of the 1896 edition of the book:
"Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: `Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all."

The last Unicorn = 1968

I call shennanigans.

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 Post subject: Re: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 10:01 am 
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Because Poe wrote on both.

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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 10:06 am 
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Probably, the riddle most likely has innumerable answers, depending on how general you want to be regarding the similarities of two disparate things.


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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 7:49 pm 
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The answer is simple... they both start with 'R'.

See numerous other references to my inability to spell for further explanation of my comment.

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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 8:06 pm 
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Shennanigans indeed!

However, there was once an agreed-upon answer to this riddle, and that answer was simple and direct, "They both make rather gracious and ungracious use of quills." This answer is rarely attributed to anyone and even more rarely heard at all.

The in-depth explanation was that the raven was a graceful bird, but terribly ugly clad in all black with a bit of ruffle here and there, thus was gracious in flight and ungracious in appearance. The writing desk would have employed the use of quills upon paper, some writing being gracious and other writing being quite vulgar.

Some attribute the supposed answer to be a joke upon Carrol, for being a man of the cloth who wrote wonderfully but had a strange fixation with young girls, of which he wrote ungraciously.

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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 11:17 pm 
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The correct answer is: When dropped onto a crowd of unsuspecting people from a great height and filled with explosives set to detonate upon impact they both cause Actor to laugh.

Actor.

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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 1:38 am 
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When is a hamster like a writing desk?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 5:18 am 
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According to your av, and to appease He Who Owns All Internets By Now, when they both have explosives strapped to them and are about to make people go boom.

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 Post subject: the answer is Edgar Allan Poe
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 2:42 am 
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But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

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