The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is the Thursday Morning Riddle. The answer is:

PLACE is correct. Way to go, Bill!

Now, you write the riddle.

Entries should follow the same format as earlier riddles: four lines of anapestic tetrameter with rhyme scheme AAAA (all four lines rhyme). Riddles are written in the first person (i.e., from the point of view of “Place”). Semicolons are used to mark a change in word meaning. The word “Place” should not be in the riddle, in any form.

Entries are due by February 8, and a winner will be chosen after that time.

UPDATE: Contest deadline extended until February 15. Good riddling!

UPDATE 2: Contest won by me!

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is the Thursday Morning Riddle. The answer is:

RING is correct. Way to go, Bill!

Now, you write the riddle.

Entries should follow the same format as earlier riddles: four lines of anapestic tetrameter with rhyme scheme AAAA (all four lines rhyme). Riddles are written in the first person (i.e., from the point of view of “Ring”). Semicolons are used to mark a change in word meaning. The word “Ring” should not be in the riddle, in any form.

Entries are due by June 1, and a winner will be chosen after that time.

UPDATE: Contest won by Anonymous. See comments for the riddle.

Here’s another Shakespeare anagram that started in comments, and I thought it deserved its own post.

After a Shakespeare-anagram debate about Waiting for “Superman,” reader Dharam posted her own anagram.

From The Taming of the Shrew:

The Taming of the Shrew

Dharam shifted around the letters, and it became:

Night of Wm’s theatre, eh?

Now, shift around the letters again, and it becomes:

Wish them together, fan?

Shift around the letters one more time, and it becomes:

The woman fights there.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is the Thursday Morning Riddle. The answer is:

CHECK is correct. Way to go, Bill!

Now, you write the riddle.

Entries should follow the same format as earlier riddles: four lines of anapestic tetrameter with rhyme scheme AAAA (all four lines rhyme). Riddles are written in the first person (i.e., from the point of view of “Check”). Semicolons are used to mark a change in word meaning. The word “Check” should not be in the riddle.

Entries are due by April 28, and a winner will be chosen after that time.

UPDATE: Contest won by Anonymous. See comments for all entries.

This started in comments, but I thought it deserved its own post.

From Much Ado About Nothing:

Much Ado About Nothing

Reader Dharam shifted around the letters, and it became:

Undoing? Ooh, but a match!

Then I shifted around the letters, and it became:

Tough union had combat.

Now, shift around the letters again, and it becomes:

Duo: no hunch to a gambit.

Shift around the letters one more time, and it becomes:

Bigmouth can undo oath.

I was on a retreat yesterday for the teacher training organization where I work. For one activity, we had to teach a skill we had to a colleague. My partner was our tech guru Evan O’Donnell, and instead of having him teach me something useful, we decided that I should teach him my method for writing riddles.

He then wrote one of his own (under extreme time pressure), and I was so impressed with how it turned out that I asked him if I could publish it here. Enjoy!

I’m a set of approaches with rules that are stern;
An aligned group of fishes, all swimming in turn;
Nirvana sings me for the money they earn;
Or I’m simply a building for students to learn.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Asher. See comments for answer.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is based on the Googleplex feature.  Normally, I provide search terms that lead to this site.  Now, you will.

The challenge is to find a search term that returns this site as the first hit on Google.

You may use quotations marks to narrow the search.  For example, “Thursday Morning Riddle” returns this site in the top two spots and most of what follows.  But in a search for Thursday Morning Riddle (without the quotes) this site doesn’t even make the top ten.

The results can be surprising.  This site is first in a quoteless search for Shakespeare Teacher.  And I’m not even in the top twenty for Shakespeare Anagram, quotes or no!

Entries are due by March 10.  I will return and choose the most creative or surprising entry.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is based on the Shakespeare Lipogram experiment.

I will give you a speech. Choose two vowels (A, E, I, O, or U) and rewrite the speech without using those vowels. Try to come as close to the original meaning as possible.

From Romeo and Juliet:

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Entries are due by March 10, and a winner will be chosen.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is based on the most recent Conundrum, which was a logic problem called Poker Game 2.

The answer is the Queen of Spades and the Six of Spades.

Your challenge is to select the five cards on the board to make that answer correct. Everything else about the problem will stay the same.

First person to post a correct entry (by March 10) is the winner.

UPDATE: I’ll leave this challenge active a little longer if anyone wants to try it.

The Shakespeare Teacher is out. It’s your move.

Today’s challenge is the Thursday Morning Riddle. The answer is:

KEY is correct. Way to go, Bill!

Now, you write the riddle.

Entries should follow the same format as earlier riddles: four lines of anapestic tetrameter with rhyme scheme AAAA (all four lines rhyme). Riddles are written in the first person (i.e., from the point of view of “Key”). Semicolons are used to mark a change in word meaning. The word “Key” should not be in the riddle.

Entries are due by March 10, and a winner will be chosen after that time.

UPDATE: Contest won by Annalisa. See comments for all entries.