Bog'liq COMPARITIVE STUDY OF ZOONIM RIDDLES BETWEEN UZBEK ANDA ENGLISH
My first is expressive of no disrespect, But I never call you by it when you are by; If my second you still are resolved to reject, As dead as my whole, I shall presently lie. The answer is ‘herring’ (her-ring). Logogriphs are riddles based on single words in which letters are removed to make new words. They are concerned with the form of the word and its components rather than its meaning.: ‘Je brille avec six pieds, avec cinq je te couvre’. This signifies the word ‘etoile’ (star) which by losing a letter becomes ‘toile’ (tablecloth)
Catch riddles are hardly riddles at all in any sense of the word but are more like jokes, in which humour derives from the fact that they seem to imply by their riddle- like form that a witty solution is in order, when in fact the answer is the obvious one. ‘Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side’ is a widely used example of this kind.
In Pictorial riddles allegorical statements are made by images, leading to a moral that is revealed by the solution of the picture. Pictorial puzzles of this kind owe much to the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians and other picture- based languages.37 According to Rogow38, riddles are classified into phonological, syntactical and semantic types. Phonological riddles are made by word sounds. For example:
Question: What nut makes you sneeze? Answer: cashew The answer of “A cashew” means a name of a nut. The same word sound is showed by “shew” because it is the manipulation of “hatchew!”, a sound of sneeze. “A cashew” is accepted as the answer as it refers to both nut and sneeze. The similar word sound of the riddle is classified as phonological riddle. Fowles and Glanz 39add that this kind of riddle is mostly played by children of 6-8 years old:
Question: Where do sheep get a haircut? Answer: At the baa-baa shop! In the riddle above, the phonological type is showed in the answer. The sound “baa-baa” is ambiguous since it may mean as the sound of a sheep which is bleating and as the manipulation of “barber”, a hair-cut shop. 40 According to Webb in Binsted and Ritchie there are three main strategies used in puns to exploit phonological riddle. The strategies are syllable substitution, word substitution, and metathesis.
Syllable substitution confuses a syllable (or syllables) in a word with a similar, or identical, sounding word. For example:
Question: What do short-sighted ghost wear? Answer: Spooktacles!41 “Spooktacles” is similar to the word “Spectacles”. As the question refers to “ghost”, the “spec” syllable is confused to “spook” syllable that means freaky.
Word substitution is very similar to syllable substitution. In this strategy, an entire word is confused with another similar, or identical, sounding word. For example:
Question: How do you make a gold soup? Answer: Put fourteen carrots in it!42 The phrase of “Carrots in” is confused with another similar sounding word of “carotene”. Since “carrots in” is the manipulation of “carotene”, the question to make a gold soup is answered.43 Metathesis is quite different from syllable or word substitution. Also known as spoonerism, it uses a reversal of sounds and words to suggest (wrongly) a similarity in meaning between two semantically-distinct phrases. For example:
Question: What’s the difference between a very short witch and a deer running from hunters? Answer: One’s stunted hag and the other’s a hunted stag.44 The second type of riddles according to Rogow is semantic riddles. Semantic riddles are riddles which are based on multiple words meaning. It is also called as Lexical riddles.45 Fowles and Glanz write that semantic riddles are mostly played by children of 8-10 years old:
Question: What has a trunk but never goes anywhere? Answer: A tree!46 “A trunk” in the question shows an ambiguity. It shows a homonymy either means as elephant’s body part or as part of plants. Since the riddle has multiple word meanings, it is categorized as semantic riddle.
The third type according to Rogow is syntactic riddles. Syntactic riddles are riddles which are based on syntax and grammatical relationship:
Question: What had four wheels and flies? Answer: A garbage truck! Riddles also build word concept. A child’s understanding of jokes and riddles are important indicators of the level of the child’s awareness of word meanings. Understanding riddles requires awareness that words have more than one meaning. Children reveal their knowledge of riddles with their answer. Offering an explanation rather than recognizing the trick question is common. For example, in the riddle “When is the ocean friendly?” the child may say “The ocean is only friendly in the shallow part.” Recognition of the nature of the riddle depends on recognition of the trick question. The answer is “When it waves at you!”47 From all explanations and examples given above, we can conclude that in riddles double meaning (ambiguity) is used to make us think about the answer. Simply put, a riddle is a play on words. A riddle is a question or statement so framed as to exercise one's smartness in answering it or discovering the meaning.