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This is an ancient puzzle from an old book that I've never seen anywhere else. Can any of you puzzlers solve it?

If the B MT put:
If the B. putting:

bobble
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JimBobOH
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    Maybe the [tag:wordplay] tag? – jpmc26 Jan 06 '16 at 21:29
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    And I thought this might have to do with the New York City subways. – phoog Jan 06 '16 at 21:52
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    You missed the second half: Never put more : over a - der You'd be an * it – phoog Jan 06 '16 at 22:11
  • A little google searching suggests that the * line is a much more recent innovation, but the puzzle dates back at least to 1864. Only one of the 1864 hits includes the third line about the - der; the rest have only the two lines given here. But it may also be that the * is original but was considered too course for publication in the 19th century. – phoog Jan 06 '16 at 22:27
  • Include the title and publication date of the book? Might give us some ideas. –  Jan 07 '16 at 03:57
  • I saw this published in a lateral thinking puzzle book shaped like a toilet. Can't find it now, and I don't remember the publisher. – ryanyuyu Jan 07 '16 at 17:42
  • @MathiasFoster it was published in 1864 in Harper's Monthly, as well as Frank Leslie's Ten Cent Monthly. Both are found in a Google Books search. – phoog Jan 07 '16 at 19:52

1 Answers1

62

If the grate be (great B) empty, put coal on (or maybe in?) (colon); if the grate be full stop putting coal in (on?).

Hunter
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Deusovi
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    A game of telephone in the age of the telegram. – Ian MacDonald Jan 06 '16 at 20:55
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    Ah, UK English riddles. Makes more sense than "If the capital be period, putting coal in". – Todd Wilcox Jan 06 '16 at 21:36
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    I think one puts coal on a grate, which makes sense, since : is a "colon." – phoog Jan 06 '16 at 21:51
  • @phoog it is pronounced co-lin – manshu Jan 06 '16 at 22:03
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    @manshu but it's spelled "colon" and who knows how it was pronounced in the 18th or 19th century when this riddle was probably developed? Also we can't give too much weight to pronunciation; there's a "p" sound in "empty" that is absent from "MT." Finally, if you put coal in a grate, then it must be small enough to fit into the grate's spaces, and it will fall through. – phoog Jan 06 '16 at 22:05
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    @manshu a little google searching will find that this puzzle has been published regularly over the last 150 years, and the answer is always given as "coal on," not "coal in." (And also that this appears to be an American puzzle, where unstressed vowels are, for the most part, not pronounced as a short "i".) – phoog Jan 06 '16 at 22:28
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    @manshu, where is colon pronounced co-lin? – Holloway Jan 07 '16 at 11:54
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    @Holloway: I pronounce it that way. It's probably a regional thing. – Deusovi Jan 07 '16 at 12:03
  • @Holloway my mistake...i have always pronounced it co-lin, but not from now on. :) – manshu Jan 07 '16 at 16:11
  • @phoog It seems unlikely that this riddle would be of American origin, since we never called it a "full stop". It seems that Brits and Yanks both called it a "period" as late as the 20th century, and it's not clear why suddenly the Brits rebelled and had to call it by their own special name. Source I also pronounce the punctuation "colon" more like "coal-in" and the part of the body like "coal-un". – Todd Wilcox Jan 07 '16 at 19:34
  • @ToddWilcox that's what I thought, too (also "great B" seems very British to me). But all the evidence I've seen points to the USA. Perhaps the Brits decided to stop calling periods "periods" for the same reason they decided to stop calling soccer "soccer." – phoog Jan 07 '16 at 19:47
  • @Holloway English "received pronunciation" has most unstressed syllables with the "i" of "in" rather than "uh" of "bus" or "o" of "on" or the like. Surely there are many other places where this sound is used. – phoog Jan 07 '16 at 19:48
  • @ToddWilcox: From a typographical standpoint, a full stop used to be a period followed by an em quad (a fairly generous amount of space), while periods in other contexts were followed by a normal word space. Curiously, it has become fashionable to regard the practice of double-spacing after a period as being a consequence of typewriters' limitations, when typists' behavior in that regard is closer to what used to be accepted practice with hand-set type. – supercat Jun 22 '16 at 21:42
  • @Deusovi $\diamondsuit$ Apologies if this is an unrelated comment, but how do you write text in grey boxes like the comments above on a phone? I know how to do it using a computer, but not my phone. Is there a way? I ask you because you are one of the moderators of this site. Thanks. – Mr Pie Jul 25 '18 at 10:55