What are the answers to these riddles?

[IceMaiden]

This is driving me mad. I'm reading the Holiday books, currently almost finished the second one and on page 129 are these puzzles:

Can you think of a word in which LA is the middle, is the beginning, and the end - and yet the letters L and A are only used once!

A little rhyme which ends with asking if a pound of down is lighter than a pound of lead.

The answers on page 149 say the answers are 'island' and the 'no they both weigh the same'. I've never been very good at riddles but how can island be the right answer? Yes it has an LA in the middle but it doesn't start or end with them! How can you get a word that has the same start, end and middle anyway. And how can a bag of lead be the same weight as a bag of feathers? What am I missing?

[pete9012S]

I've posted the pages you've referred to IceMaiden so we can see if we can nail your query together.

[Bertie]

The pound one is deceptively simple as we're told the answer in the question. If we're told that they both weigh a pound, then they obviously both weigh the same - a pound. There just must be a lot more of the lighter stuff than the heavier stuff to add up to the same weight (as indicated by the different sizes of sacks in the illustration).

The island one is in the wording of the question. 'La' is the middle (Island). 'Is' the beginning (Island). 'And' the end (Island).

[Boatbuilder]

As far as the sack containing lead or thistledown is concerned, unless the sacks were identical in all respects, it's quite possible the sack of thistledown would be the heavier as the sack would likely be bigger to hold the volume of a pound and would therefore add to the overall weight. Of course that is different if you just ask the question "What is heavier, a pound of thistledown or a pound of lead?"

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

The island one is in the wording of the question. 'La' is the middle (Island). 'Is' the beginning (Island). 'And' the end (Island).

Very clever!

[pete9012S]

Superb!

I knew with the brainpower on this forum we could nail it - now I just need the brains to understand the answer!!



I would have got it if it was posed like this!!!

[Splodj]

Or ...

Can you think of a word in which LA is the middle, is is the beginning, and and the end?

It reminds me of another puzzle. A letter was addressed as follows:

WOOD
JOHN
HANTS

To whom and where was it delivered?

[Anita Bensoussane]

John Underwood, Andover, Hants?

[Splodj]

Correct!

[Wolfgang]

As far as the sack containing lead or thistledown is concerned, unless the sacks were identical in all respects, it's quite possible the sack of thistledown would be the heavier as the sack would likely be bigger to hold the volume of a pound and would therefore add to the overall weight. Of course that is different if you just ask the question "What is heavier, a pound of thistledown or a pound of lead?"

Actually it depends on the air pressure. If their density is equal, both have always the same weight compared with it each other under the same conditions. Most significant is it when you put a pound of lead into water - it will sink down immediately, thistledown will probaly swim on it.
You can compare the mass only in a vacuum directly, otherwise the buoyancy of the surrounding medium has to take into account.

[Boatbuilder]

This is not a riddle but a true story that the above reminded me of, although it possibly was a riddle for the Royal Mail (or whatever they were known as at the time).

This was in the early 70s and where I worked I used to deal with my company's Head Office in Chicago from where I used to order spare parts for the American machines in the factory. They used to send me postcards acknowledging the orders that I placed by Telex. These cards came in a large sealed re-usable plastic mailing envelope with other internal mail for the factory. Apart from the details of the order on the reverse of the card, the address side would just have my two initials and surname written on it followed by 'Liverpool, England'. Obviously the mail department in the head office would just collate all the mail for our factory into one mail bag each day before it left in the US Mail.

One day when I got home from work, one of these postcards had been delivered to my house. Obviously it had missed going into the mailing bag in Chicago and found its way into the US Mail system on its own, not even franked or with a stamp. Written on the address side, as well as what I mentioned above, were the words "Try (followed by my house number and road), L21". L21 was the Liverpool postal district I lived in. I can only assume they (Royal Mail) looked my name up in the phone directory as I was the only person with those initials and surname in the Liverpool phonebook at the time. At least it got to the intended person, but not at the correct address. There was no company identification on those cards as they were intended for internal use only and considering there was no postage on it the Royal Mail (or whatever they were called) did a first class job.

[pete9012S]

This is driving me mad. I'm reading the Holiday books, currently almost finished the second one and on page 129 are these puzzles:

Can you think of a word in which LA is the middle, is the beginning, and the end - and yet the letters L and A are only used once!

A little rhyme which ends with asking if a pound of down is lighter than a pound of lead.

The answers on page 149 say the answers are 'island' and the 'no they both weigh the same'. I've never been very good at riddles but how can island be the right answer? Yes it has an LA in the middle but it doesn't start or end with them! How can you get a word that has the same start, end and middle anyway. And how can a bag of lead be the same weight as a bag of feathers? What am I missing?

I hope when you pop back in here the answer is a bit clearer for you now IceMaiden.
It took quite a bit of time, but eventually due to Bertie's help I got it!!

[Splodj]

Boatbuilder's post reminds me of when Richard Stilgoe, on the TV programme 'Nationwide', tested the GPO by posting letters to himself at the BBC with increasingly vague addresses. All were delivered, including the final one with simply 'Guess Who' on the envelope!

[Boatbuilder]

If it was handwritten they had probably recognised the writing by then.

[Courtenay]

I guarantee if you drop a letter in the mail (with the correct international postage, of course) addressed simply to:

Mr & Mrs [my parents' surname, which I'm not going to give publicly]
Inverloch
Australia

... it will get to them — but only because there's only one town called Inverloch in the whole of Australia and it's not that big and we have an uncommon surname, so it wouldn't be too difficult for Australia Post to work out, even without the postcode and street address!! (Back when Grandma and Grandpa were still alive, it might have gone to them, of course — but as their house was next door to ours, we didn't have far to go to swap misdirected mail! Which happened pretty often, as Dad's first name is the same as his father's, so that added to the confusion.)