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Newspaper riddle

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The newspaper riddle is a riddle joke or conundrum in English that begins with the question:^[1]

Q: What is black and white and red all over?

The traditional answer, which relies upon the identical pronunciation of the words "red" and "read", is:^[1]^[2]

A: A newspaper.

Barrick^[1] believes this riddle to be "perhaps the most common example of a folk riddle collected in the United States in the twentieth century", pointing out that between 1917 and 1939 it appeared in 15 collections of folk riddles, and in a further six between 1939 and 1974.

Alternative answers to the riddle exist, where red is used as a color, parodying the canonical form of the riddle. Examples include: "a chocolate sundae with ketchup on top", "a badger in a blender", "a crossword done in red ink",^[3] and "a penguin with a sunburn". Portnoy describes these answers as "adequate, but not clever", because they lack the homophonic pun.^[4]

A much darker version of the riddle exists with the answer "a wounded nun." This is also the answer to the similar riddle "What's black and white and crawls on all fours?"^[5]

Translations

[edit]

In The Language of Jokes, Delia Chiaro notes that it is, technically, impossible to translate this joke into languages other than English, pointing out that, for example, in French, Italian, and German the words "rouge", "rosso", and "rot" have no meaning other than "red" and do not possess homophones.^[6]

She adds that it is possible to translate the intent of the joke, and to retain the invariant core of the colour red and the reference to a newspaper, by substituting a different riddle that relies upon metaphor, albeit that the homophonic play upon words is lost. She gives the following example in French, which relies upon the facts that L'Humanité is the newspaper of the French Communist Party, and that, as "red" has in English, "rouge" in French has political connotations of Communism:^[6]

Q: Qu'est-ce qui/Quel journal est tout rouge et noir et blanc?

A: L'Humanité

She also gives a similar example in Italian, this time using the newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (L'Unità), noting that in Italian the order of black and white is the reverse of that in English and "rosso" must come first:^[6]

Q: Quale giornale è rosso, bianco e nero?

A: L'Unità

For German, she gives this example, which again, like Italian, requires the colour adjectives to be in a different order:^[6]

Q: Was ist rot, schwarz und weiss?

A: Die Tageszeitung

Famous uses

[edit]

In 2009, Jason Jones pitched this riddle to Bill Keller, the editor of The New York Times, giving the answer: "Your balance sheet".^[7]

Jimmy Kimmel at the 2012 White House Correspondent's Dinner did this joke and replied: "Nothing anymore", in an allusion to the death of print news.^[8]

References

[edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c Mac E. Barrick (July–September 1974). "The Newspaper Riddle Joke". The Journal of American Folklore. 87 (345): 253–257. doi:10.2307/538740. JSTOR 538740.
^ George Yule (1996). The Study of Language. Cambridge University Press. p. 122. ISBN 0-521-56851-X.
^ New York Folklore Society (1945). New York Folklore Quarterly. Cornell University Press. p. 247.
^ Phyllis Portnoy (2006). The Remnant: Essays on a Theme in Old English Verse. Runetree. p. 32. ISBN 1-898-57710-2.
^ Elliott Oring (1 October 2010). Engaging Humor. University of Illinois Press. pp. 24–. ISBN 978-0-252-09205-3.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Delia Chiaro (1992). The Language of Jokes: analysing verbal play. Routledge. pp. 92–93. ISBN 0-415-03090-0.
^ "End Times - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 06/10/09 - Video Clip | Comedy Central". Archived from the original on 2012-04-26. Retrieved 2012-04-30.
^ Jimmy Kimmel at the White House Correspondent's Dinner- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pazhvZ-FnNg

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The newspaper riddle is a traditional English-language conundrum that asks, "What is black and white and red all over?" The standard solution is "a newspaper," which plays on the homophony of "red" and "read," evoking black ink on white paper that is widely perused.^[1]^[2] This pun-based riddle, documented in folklore collections, exemplifies descriptive riddles relying on linguistic ambiguity rather than literal description.^[3] Variations exist, such as alternative answers like an embarrassed zebra, but the newspaper interpretation remains the most canonical.^[4] The riddle's persistence highlights its appeal in oral and printed traditions, though its premise assumes monochrome printing prevalent before widespread color reproduction.^[5]

Core Elements

Riddle Statement and Canonical Answer

The newspaper riddle is a classic pun-based conundrum that queries: "What is black and white and red all over?"^[6]^[2] The canonical resolution identifies the subject as a newspaper, exploiting the homophonic pun between "red" (the color) and "read" (as in perused), thus rendering it "black and white and read all over."^[7]^[6] This answer aligns with the visual and functional attributes of traditional print newspapers, which feature black ink on white paper and are widely disseminated for reading.^[2] The riddle's structure hinges on misdirection: the initial phrasing evokes a literal description of colors—black, white, and red—prompting visualizations of striped or painted objects, before the auditory pun reveals the intended solution.^[7] This form of wordplay, common in English-language riddles, dates to at least the mid-20th century in documented collections, though oral variants likely predate printed records.^[2] Alternative literal interpretations, such as a sunburned zebra or an embarrassed penguin, parody the original but deviate from the canonical pun resolution tied to newsprint media.^[4] The newspaper-specific answer remains predominant in riddle anthologies and popular culture due to its simplicity and direct evocation of everyday reading materials.^[6]

Linguistic Analysis of the Pun

The pun central to the newspaper riddle—"What is black and white and read all over?"—exploits the homophony between the irregular past tense and past participle of the verb "read" (pronounced /rɛd/, as in "I read the news") and the color adjective "red" (/rɛd/). This phonological equivalence creates lexical ambiguity, prompting initial interpretation of the riddle as a query about an object that is black, white, and red in coloration, only to resolve via the semantic shift to "read" denoting perusal or dissemination.^[8]^[9] The device aligns with homophonic puns, where identical or near-identical sounds carry divergent meanings, a staple of verbal humor in English riddles that leverages listener expectations for literal color descriptors.^[10] Linguistically, the pun's efficacy stems from English's morphological irregularities: the verb "read" shifts pronunciation from /riːd/ (present infinitive) to /rɛd/ (past forms), converging phonetically with "red" without orthographic overlap, which heightens the surprise upon resolution. This is not mere coincidence but arises from historical sound changes in Germanic languages, where vowel alternation (ablaut) in strong verbs like "read" produces the matching vowel quality. Critics of purely phonetic accounts argue the homophony is morphologically driven, as the past tense form's vowel reduction mirrors patterns in other irregular verbs, enabling the pun's layered ambiguity without relying solely on surface-level sound similarity.^[11]^[12] The riddle's structure exemplifies syntactic and semantic priming in punning: the parallel adjectives "black and white" prime a color triad expectation, disrupted by "read all over," which semantically pivots to coverage or ubiquity (as in newspapers distributed widely). This misalignment generates humor through incongruity resolution, a cognitive process where the brain reconciles competing interpretations, often requiring re-parsing of the phrase. In broader linguistic terms, such puns illustrate how English's high incidence of homophones—stemming from its mixed Germanic-Romance lexicon and orthographic inconsistencies—facilitates riddle-based wordplay, distinguishing it from less homophone-rich languages.^[13]^[14] Empirical studies of verbal humor confirm that resolution speed correlates with pun appreciation, with "read/red" exemplifying rapid disambiguation in native speakers.^[8]

Historical Development

Earliest Known Appearances

The newspaper riddle, phrased as "What is black and white and red all over?" with the punning answer "a newspaper," emerged as part of American oral folklore, with its earliest documented appearances traced to early 20th-century children's publications and later formalized in university folklore collections. The riddle's structure exploits the homophony between "red" (color) and "read" (past tense of reading), aligning with the visual and functional characteristics of mass-printed newspapers predominant in the United States during that era. While precise first-print origins remain elusive due to the riddle's folk transmission, it reflects the cultural ubiquity of black-and-white newsprint media by the 1900s.^[15] Folklore archives provide key evidence of its early circulation. The James T. Callow Computerized Folklore Archive at the University of Detroit Mercy records the riddle in collections from student informants, listing variants with the canonical answer "a newspaper" alongside humorous alternatives like a "skunk with diaper rash," indicating its role in casual riddle-sharing by the mid-20th century but rooted in prior tradition.^[16] Similarly, the USC Digital Folklore Archive documents personal accounts of the riddle being performed in elementary school show-and-tell sessions, underscoring its transmission through educational and familial oral contexts as a classic pun.^[17] These archival instances suggest the riddle predates systematic collection efforts, likely circulating informally in newspapers' riddle columns or children's magazines from the 1910s onward, though no single "first" publication has been definitively identified in available records. Its persistence without attribution to a specific author aligns with conundrum-style riddles, defined in dictionaries as pun-based puzzles exemplified by this very example.^[18] The lack of earlier 19th-century attestations in searchable digitized newspapers implies it postdates widespread color printing limitations, favoring black-and-white formats "read" nationwide.

Publication in Riddle Collections

The newspaper riddle has been anthologized extensively in printed collections of riddles since the early 20th century, particularly in volumes aimed at children and educational audiences, where its accessible pun serves as an exemplar of verbal wordplay. Scholar Mac E. Barrick characterized it in 1974 as "perhaps the most common riddle joke in the English language," attributing its prevalence to the riddle's simplicity and adaptability, which facilitated its reproduction across folklore compilations and humor books. This ubiquity stems from the riddle's alignment with oral traditions transitioning to print, as compilers sought lightweight, memorable entries to engage young readers or illustrate linguistic ambiguity. Notable inclusions appear in modern riddle anthologies, such as David Astle's Riddledom: 101 Riddles and Their Stories (2014), which features the riddle as a canonical example of pun-based humor alongside historical context for its evolution.^[19] Similarly, Brian P. Cleary's Reading Is Funny!: Motivating Kids to Read with Riddles, Puns, and Wordplay (2010) incorporates it to promote literacy, pairing the query "What's black and white and 'read' all over?" with the canonical newspaper resolution to highlight homophonic twists.^[20] These publications underscore the riddle's role in pedagogical tools, where it often anchors sections on everyday objects and sensory misdirection. In broader folklore and joke compilations, the riddle recurs as a staple, with variations noted in Irish schoolchildren's submissions archived in the 1930s by the Irish Folklore Commission, later digitized in collections like Dúchas.ie, reflecting its cross-cultural embedding in print even amid oral dissemination.^[21] Such entries demonstrate how anthologists preserved the riddle's core form while occasionally appending alternative answers, ensuring its persistence without diluting the original pun's empirical grounding in print media's visual and phonetic properties.

Variations and Interpretations

Alternative Pun Resolutions

One common alternative resolution interprets "read" as the color "red," proposing a nun in a black-and-white habit who has fallen down stairs and become bloodied, thus appearing black, white, and red all over.^[22] This literal approach parodies the original pun by prioritizing physical redness over the homophone wordplay, appearing in informal riddle-sharing contexts as early as the mid-20th century in oral traditions.^[23] Another variant suggests an embarrassed zebra, where the black-and-white stripes contrast with a "red" (blushing) face from shame, again resolving to literal coloration rather than reading.^[24] Similarly, a skunk covered in raspberry jam combines black-and-white fur with red staining, emphasizing visual absurdity over linguistic ambiguity.^[24] These examples, documented in online riddle forums since at least 2022, highlight how the riddle's structure invites creative but non-canonical extensions that undermine the intended pun on newspaper consumption.^[24] Such alternatives often circulate as "silly" or anti-joke responses, as in the case of a sunburned nun, which adapts the habit motif to sunburn-induced redness for comedic effect in English-speaking regions like Australia.^[23] Unlike the canonical answer, these lack reliance on the read/red homophone for resolution, instead exploiting the riddle's descriptive setup for visual puns, though they rarely appear in formal riddle anthologies and serve primarily as folk humor.

Modern and Humorous Alternatives

Contemporary adaptations of the newspaper riddle often replace the original pun with literal or exaggerated interpretations of "red all over," yielding absurd or visually comedic resolutions that prioritize humor over linguistic wordplay. These variants emerged prominently in online forums and riddle-sharing platforms during the 2010s, reflecting a shift toward visual gags suited to internet meme culture.^[25] One common humorous alternative is "a sunburned zebra," which evokes the animal's black-and-white stripes contrasted with inflamed red skin from sun exposure, playing on the riddle's colors for slapstick effect rather than the "read/red" homophone.^[25] Similarly, "an embarrassed nun" suggests a figure in traditional black-and-white clerical garb whose face flushes red with shame, blending religious imagery with mild embarrassment for ironic comedy; this version dates to at least early 2000s online riddle exchanges.^[26]^[25] More grotesque twists include "a skunk in a blender," implying black-and-white fur splattered with red blood for dark humor, or "a sunburned penguin," adapting the zebra motif to Antarctic fauna with exaggerated vulnerability to UV rays.^[25] These literal takes gained traction in casual riddle compilations, such as those on personal blogs and Q&A sites, where users favored shock value or animal anthropomorphism over the canonical newspaper answer.^[27] Animal-themed variants extend to niche puns like "the gnus-paper" for what antelopes read, a phonetic twist on "news" featured in children's riddle books to inject whimsy via wildlife wordplay.^[28] In digital-era humor, some propose "a PDF file that's been read all over," nodding to electronic media while retaining the pun, though this remains less widespread than physical absurdities.^[23] Overall, these alternatives underscore the riddle's flexibility for comedic reinvention, often prioritizing visual punchlines in visual-heavy online spaces over the original's verbal cleverness.^[15]

Cultural and Media Usage

Notable Instances in Literature and Entertainment

The riddle has appeared in various television episodes, often as a playful challenge posed by characters known for intellectual games. In the 1966 Batman series episode "The Ring of Wax," the Riddler presents a variant emphasizing "red" (via paint from a statue's rifle) rather than the homophone "read," tying into the plot's wax museum theme and riddle-solving dynamic between villains and heroes.^[29] In the animated children's series Arthur, the episode "Arthur and the Big Riddle" (aired 1997) features the Tibble twins tricking Arthur with the question, to which he correctly answers "a newspaper," before they propose an absurd alternative involving a penguin; this highlights the riddle's role in teaching wordplay and frustration with misdirection in a family-friendly context.^[30] In the crime drama Gotham (2014–2019), Edward Nygma, the precursor to the Riddler, poses "What's black and white and red all over?" as one of his enigmas, left unanswered in the narrative to build tension around his emerging villainy.^[31] The riddle also influences episode titles, such as "Black and White and Chi All Over" in Jackie Chan Adventures (season 3, episode 6, aired 2002), which parodies the phrasing while centering on mystical energy absorption, demonstrating its adaptability to action-adventure plots involving supernatural elements.^[32] In comics, Impulse #48 (DC Comics, January 1999) incorporates the riddle amid a sequence of classic brainteasers during a lighthearted, high-speed adventure, underscoring its familiarity as a staple of youthful, quick-witted banter.^[33] A British children's educational program, Black and White and Read All Over (ITV, 1980s), drew its title directly from the riddle to promote literacy, with hosts exploring books in a department store setting, though it focused more on reading encouragement than explicit riddle recitation.^[34] These instances reflect the riddle's enduring appeal in media for illustrating puns, often in contexts of mystery-solving or child-oriented humor, without altering its core newspaper resolution.

Role in Folklore and Oral Tradition

The newspaper riddle, "What is black and white and read all over?", functions within folklore as a modern exemplar of pun-based wordplay, a mechanism deeply embedded in oral traditions for eliciting surprise and reinforcing linguistic creativity. Riddles of this type, transmitted verbally across generations, mimic ancient contest forms where participants vied for wit, but adapt contemporary objects like newspapers—ubiquitous in the 19th and 20th centuries—to exploit homophones such as "read" and "red." In oral settings, it serves didactic purposes, honing children's phonological awareness and humor appreciation, often shared in familial storytelling or playground exchanges before widespread print dissemination.^[35] Folklore collections document its persistence in spoken English traditions, classifying it alongside archaic riddles despite its recency, as evidenced in archival compilations from university programs that capture variants from student informants in the American West during the mid-20th century. These oral variants emphasize performative delivery, with pauses building anticipation, aligning with broader riddle functions in folklore: defusing tension, fostering group cohesion, and preserving cultural commentary on media consumption. Scholarly analyses, such as those drawing from recorded oral repertoires, position it as a bridge between pre-literate riddle contests and industrialized-era humor, underscoring how folklore evolves by incorporating everyday artifacts into verbal artistry.^[36]^[37]^[38] Its role extends to reinforcing communal bonds in non-formal education, where elders or peers pose it to initiate laughter or mild deception, a tactic rooted in riddle scholarship identifying teasing and cognitive challenge as core to the genre's oral vitality. Unlike purely narrative folktales, this riddle's brevity suits impromptu recitation, contributing to its endurance in English-speaking diasporas even as digital media supplants print newspapers. Archival evidence from 1970s folklore classes highlights its frequency in youth oral lore, illustrating adaptation over obsolescence.^[39]^[40]

Global Perspectives

Translations into Other Languages

The newspaper riddle's pun, hinging on the English homophones "read" (past tense of reading) and "red," does not translate directly into languages lacking equivalent auditory wordplay, resulting in adaptations that emphasize visual elements (black ink, white paper) and widespread readership while substituting "red" literally or via explanation. These versions preserve the riddle's structure and answer—a newspaper or equivalent—but forfeit the phonetic surprise, often relying on cultural familiarity with print media.^[41] In French, a common form is "Qu'est-ce qui est noir et blanc et rouge partout ? Un journal," where "rouge" (red) stands in for the lost pun, sometimes annotated as "rouge (lu)" to evoke "lu" (read).^[41] A variant specific to France plays on political connotations: "Quel journal est tout rouge et noir et blanc ? L'Humanité," referring to the left-leaning newspaper L'Humanité ("red" for communist associations, with black ink and white paper).^[42] Spanish adaptations mirror this approach: "Qué es negro y blanco y rojo por todas partes ? Un periódico," prioritizing the descriptive imagery over homophony, as "leído" (read) does not phonetically resemble "rojo" (red).^[43] In contexts emphasizing humor, alternatives like "una cebra avergonzada" (a embarrassed zebra, implying blush/red) appear alongside the newspaper resolution.^[43] German versions include "Was ist schwarz und weiß und rot überall ? Eine Zeitung," again using "rot" (red) descriptively, with no native pun on "gelesen" (read); the riddle circulates in joke collections and cartoons retaining the English-inspired format.^[44] Such translations, documented in linguistic and humor resources since at least the late 20th century, highlight the riddle's adaptability but underscore its origins in English phonetic ambiguity.^[45]

Equivalents in Non-English Speaking Cultures

In Italian, the riddle is adapted to exploit the association of the color red ("rossa") with political ideology rather than a homophone pun: "Che cosa è nero, bianco e rossa ovunque?" The answer references L'Unità, the former Italian Communist Party newspaper, evoking its "red" partisan symbolism alongside the black ink and white paper.^[46] This substitution preserves the visual and thematic elements—black print, white background, and "redness"—while aligning with cultural context, as L'Unità was published from 1924 to 2012 and explicitly tied to leftist iconography. Alternative answers in the same vein include "una zebra con la scottatura solare" (a zebra with sunburn), shifting to a literal red but retaining the black-and-white base.^[47] Direct linguistic equivalents are scarce in other languages due to the absence of homophones between "red" and "read" equivalents; for instance, French "rouge" (red) contrasts with "lu" (read, past participle of lire), precluding a phonetic match.^[48] German uses "rot" for red and "gelesen" for read, similarly unyielding to punning. Spanish "rojo" and "leído" offer no overlap, leading translators to favor descriptive adaptations over wordplay fidelity. In non-Romance languages like Mandarin Chinese, where newspapers ("bàozhǐ") lack color-based puns tied to reading ("dú"), equivalents pivot to unrelated riddles emphasizing daily dissemination, such as those likening newsprint to fleeting whispers, though none mirror the original's structure verifiably in primary sources.^[49] These adaptations highlight cultural localization in riddle transmission, prioritizing conceptual humor over literal translation, as evidenced in bilingual humor studies where source-language puns yield to target-culture references for comprehension.^[46] No widespread, pun-equivalent variants appear in Slavic or Asian folklore collections, underscoring the riddle's Anglophone specificity.^[50]

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