It’s the riddle everyone wants to know the answer to, but can YOU solve it?
One of the most recent viral riddles starts with the sentence “Someone’s mother has four sons.” It turns out that the easiest answer was wrong. And even the smartest people keep missing the right answer.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the “Someone’s mother” riddle has grown so famous on social networking sites like Facebook and WhatsApp—and that everyone is excited to hear the answer.
Read on for a detailed explanation of how to arrive at that answer.
The “Someone’s mother riddle”
The entire riddle goes like this: Someone’s mother has four sons: North, West, and South. What is the name of the fourth son?
If your instinct is to blurt out, “EAST” you aren’t alone. Because we’re so conditioned to associate the four cardinal directions with each other, this is the error that most people make. Of course, the riddle is designed to trick us this way.
But in order to correctly answer the someone’s mother riddle, we must reject this way of thinking. It is wise to repeat the question more slowly.
Let’s take a peek at that punctuation in the riddle itself. Yes, for once, we can go on decent punctuation in social media world. The line we need to focus on is,
‘’What is the name of the fourth son.’’
You’ll notice there isn’t a question mark in that sentence.
Someone. Really, anyone might be someone. So, let’s pick someone to stand in Someone’s place. I’ll call him Jeff.
We now have “Jeff’s mother has four sons: North, West, and South” in place of “Someone’s mother.” And who is that fourth son? Why, it’s Jeff, of course!
So, looking back at the original question, it’s now clear that the correct answer is: Someone!
Did you like the riddle, “Someone’s mother has four sons?” If so, you’ll enjoy these other viral riddles.
