Colon (ko’-lon): Roughly equivalent to “clause” in English, except that the emphasis is on seeing this part of a sentence as needing completion, either with a second colon (or membrum) or with two others (forming a tricolon). When cola (or membra) are of equal length, they form isocolon.
“I am black, and white, and read all over.” This riddle fails in print. The homophone for read is red. In its saying, given the black and white colors, “read” comes off as the color “red” and the riddle is in the “read.” The riddler asks, “What am I.” Answer: a newspaper. Big ha ha. What a waste of time.
Every morning, before she made me breakfast, my mother would “riddle me” like something out of Batman. It was like my mother was the Riddler. if I was unable to solve the riddle, she would cackle and say “I’m going to blow your house down.” It was really vexing. I was 11 years old. What the hell did she expect? When I successfully solved a riddle she sang “Amazing Grace” and gave me two jelly donuts. My successful solution was rare, so rare, that the jelly donuts were stale—hardened with time. So, I just sucked out the raspberry jelly and considered myself lucky. At least I was better off than my Korean refugee friend Do-yun.
His family had fled war-torn Korea. It turned out that his father was a North Korean agent. He was a conduit, receiving intelligence from Chinese operatives who frequented his bar/restaurant “Hot Pot Haven.” He would receive compromising information on South Korean generals and pass it along to CIA. Although the information was completely false, the generals would be courtmartialed and executed. The South Koreans trusted CIA too much, but the executions opened slots for promotion, so the South Korean intelligence agencies let CIA’s misinformation slide.
Sometimes they would use riddles to covey information: a bold, wily, witty strategy. The riddle below was used to convey the secret North Korean desire to improve its power grid:
“Q: Why did the gardener plant a light bulb in his field?”
This question was transmitted to South Korean operatives who were expected to answer it using decryption skills they had learned from Special Services soldiers who had trained them in clandestine literary interpretation tactics and techniques.
Now, we’re in a position to successfully interpret the encrypted message, delivered in the disguise of a riddle:
“A: He was trying to grow a power plant.”
Brilliant! Power plant! Who but a trained riddle-cracker could find the intel in an answer to a so seemingly benign question? This tactic does not depend on cumbersome and expensive cryptology. It is seemingly a display of wit, a sort of parlor game designed solely for entertainment—not for the communication of crucial international intelligence information. Which it is!
It is well-known that the United States maintains an Army Riddle Corps (ARC). Their mission is “The production and interpretation of politically consequential riddles.” That’s all we know about ARC.
After my friend Do-yun’s father was caught spying for communist China and executed, we took over “Hot Pot Haven.” I learned what hot pot is and tended bar after school. Do-yun held a riddle contest every Wednesday night. One night, three guys in black suits showed up. They led Do-yun out the door with his hands up.
I didn’t know anything about Korean cuisine, so I hired a Korean guy, to replace Do-yun, who made Korean dishes, to cook and run the kitchen. In the interview I asked him a riddle:
“Q: What is brought to the table, always cut but never eaten?”
My prospective employee couldn’t get the answer. Although he might’ve been faking, this still gave me confidence that he wasn’t a national security threat. So, I hired him.
The answer he couldn’t get was:
“A: A deck of cards.”
We resumed Wednesday riddle nights. It usually attracted 10-12 men in black suits. Their enthusiasm was disconcerting.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
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