Riddle

A question whose posing may constitute a test in a rite of passage, or a simple amusement. However some riddles have been used for serious investigation of their linguistic and logical characteristics. Typically, a riddle may offer metaphoric, ambiguous, or cyrptic descriptions which have to be identified as the characteristics, properties, circumstance, etc associated with the correct answer. Different meanings of words (polysemy) may be used in riadling, as may punning, aparent contradiction and paradox. Riddles correspond, for example, to the following forms of affirmation: a candle grows shorter the longer it stands; a hole grows larger the more one takes fromit, etc. The Riddle of the Sphinx is a descriptive riddle, asking, 'what has...', followed by several properties. Another form of riddle is, 'what is the difference between...'. The most ancient riddles were probably metaphoric, encompassing a unified world-view of a creation based on universal patterns, one thing often being analagous to another. The most modern riddles are those of scientifically complementary fact, e.g. the wave and corpuscular nature of light, uniformity and relativity; cration and evolution; certainly and probability, etc.