Riddle Stumps the Internet, But Has a Simple Solution

Sometimes the answer is just staring us right in the face. When Lacey Read posted a riddle to Facebook, she never imagined the response it would get.

“This really screwed w (sic) my head,” wrote Read alongside an image of a bar or restaurant sign you’d see outside on the sidewalk.

Since she posted the image, it’s received tens of thousands of comments and has been shared over 200,000 times, as other users were stumped trying to figure out the riddle.

Understandably, some users were frustrated trying to answer the question of the “what has 4 letters” riddle.

Read eventually jumped in to offer a clue.

Even with the clue, it still took some quite a while to figure out the answer.

Did you figure it out yet? Using Read’s clue above, let’s start at the top. “What has 4 letters.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Sometimes 9 letters.” Again, reading it literally, “sometimes” does have nine letters.

And finally, “but never has 5 letters.” “Never” has five letters.

The riddle plays with our minds because we’re so used to reading a sentence that begins with “what” as if it were a question. In this case, just reading the sign as a statement, it makes perfect sense.

Did you get the riddle right away, or did you need to use the clue? SHARE this story with your friends to see which one of them can guess the right answer!