The guard yells "Twelve!" and the man responds...

April 8, 2009 3:35 PM

A man wants to enter a city, but only knights can enter the city, so he decides to see how the knights do it. ...What's the punchline?

A Stranger on Omegle was telling me this story/joke, but wouldn't tell me the punch line! I know I've heard the joke before, but I'm finding it nearly impossible to google for, since it's such a loose set-up. It's killing me! Here's the set-up:

A man from out in the country goes to a big city, but the city is closed, and is only allowing knights in through the gates. Undeterred, the man resolves to watch the knights and see how they're gaining entry.
Soon enough, a knight comes by. The guard on the wall yells down "Eight!" and the knight responds with "Four!" The guard opens the gate and the knight enters.
A second knight comes by, and the exchange is repeated, only thsi time, the guard yells "Six!" and the knight yells "Three!"
The man by this time figures that it's pretty easy, so he walks up to the gate, and the guard yells "Twelve!"

What does the man respond with? It wouldn't be "Six", because that would make the whole story a little pointless. "Six" has 3 letters, but "Eight" has 5, so that doesn't work either. Help me, Hivemind, before I go insane!

posted by specialagentwebb to writing & language (8 comments total)

Well...this version of the same riddle says that the answer for Eight is supposed to be Five. So...are you sure he told it right?
posted by cabingirl at 3:40 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

This sounds like a simple math story/problem for kids. The great thing about Omegle is that you don't know who you're talking to, so you may very well have been talking to a kid.
posted by zerokey at 3:42 PM on April 8

Every time I have seen this riddle, it's been based on the number of letters, so I think someone mangled the story.
posted by rokusan at 3:44 PM on April 8

Haha. I feel foolish for trusting someone on Omegle to tell a riddle correctly. Thanks for the help!
posted by specialagentwebb at 3:45 PM on April 8

AskMe needs a category for "Riddles and Puzzles". I'd favorite that sucker.
posted by rokusan at 6:07 PM on April 8

If you're going to tell this as a riddle, perhaps you'd better have the guard yell "ten" at him, since "twelve" does have six letters... Maybe the guard should even yell "eleven," because then the man knows his hypothesis is totally off.
posted by matematichica at 6:52 PM on April 8

EF
ST
The starting letters follow each other alphabetically?
posted by Acacia at 10:39 PM on April 8

Oh, ahm, wait. Is Underwear a number?
posted by Acacia at 10:44 PM on April 8