Trick Questions to Ask Your Girlfriend
Twenty questions with an actual catch in them, from gentle warm ups to the ones almost nobody gets first time, with the answer and the trap explained so you are not caught out yourself.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Which is heavier, a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?
Why ask it
They weigh the same. This is the friendliest one to open with because the trap is obvious two seconds after answering, so nobody feels stupid. If she catches it immediately, skip ahead to the arithmetic ones, because she is not going to fall for the wordplay.
Some months have 31 days. How many have 28?
Why ask it
All twelve of them have 28 days. The expected answer is one, because the word 28 pulls February forward before the sentence finishes. Do not say only in the question, because adding that word makes February the correct answer and ruins it.
How much dirt is in a hole two feet wide and two feet deep?
Why ask it
None. It is a hole. The measurements are there to start her doing volume in her head, and the more numerate she is, the longer the calculation runs before she hears the actual question.
If a rooster lays an egg on a slanted roof, which way does it roll?
Why ask it
Roosters do not lay eggs. Most people commit to a direction and then argue about the pitch of the roof. The detail about the slant is doing all the work, which is worth pointing out afterwards.
A plane crashes on the border between two countries. Where do they bury the survivors?
Why ask it
You do not bury survivors. The border detail sends people off into jurisdiction and paperwork. This is the one people most often insist has no answer before they reread it.
How many of each animal did Moses take on the ark?
Why ask it
It was Noah, not Moses. Almost everyone answers two, because the sentence is shaped so familiarly that the wrong name slides straight past. It works best said quickly and in the middle of other questions, not announced as a trick.
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
Why ask it
Mount Everest. It was already the tallest, it just had not been surveyed and named by the people asking. The word discovered is what tempts people into naming K2 or Kilimanjaro.
Spell the word silk. Now, what do cows drink?
Why ask it
Water. Having her say silk out loud primes the sound, and milk arrives before she has thought about what an adult cow actually drinks. This one only works once, so save it for a group.
How many letters are in the alphabet?
Why ask it
Eleven, because the alphabet is the phrase you asked about. Nearly everyone answers 26. She will accuse you of cheating, and she is a little bit right, which is part of the fun.
What can you catch but never throw?
Why ask it
A cold. The word catch is doing double duty, and people search the room for a physical object instead of an idiom. If she is stuck, tell her to think about what you say in winter.
If there are three apples and you take away two, how many do you have?
Why ask it
Two, because you took them. The question sounds like subtraction, so people answer one, which is how many are left on the table rather than how many you have.
You are in a race and you pass the person in second place. What place are you in?
Why ask it
Second, not first. You have taken the place of the person you just passed. This one usually needs to be walked through slowly before anyone accepts it, and that argument is the best part.
A farmer has 17 sheep and all but nine run away. How many are left?
Why ask it
Nine. All but nine means nine stayed, but people hear it as a subtraction problem and start doing 17 minus nine. The 17 is a decoy and can be any number at all.
A doctor gives you three pills and says to take one every half hour. How long do they last?
Why ask it
One hour, because you take the first one straight away. Most people say an hour and a half by multiplying three by thirty minutes and forgetting that the first dose is at time zero.
How many birthdays does the average person have?
Why ask it
One, the day they were born. Everything after that is an anniversary of it. Expect a fight about the word birthday, which is a fair fight, and a good sign she is paying attention to language rather than numbers.
If a red house is made of red bricks and a blue house is made of blue bricks, what is a greenhouse made of?
Why ask it
Glass. The pattern in the first half of the sentence is so strong that people answer green bricks while knowing perfectly well what a greenhouse is. A neat demonstration that the setup matters more than the question.
A bat and a ball cost a dollar ten together, and the bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much is the ball?
Why ask it
Five cents, which makes the bat a dollar five and the pair a dollar ten. Almost everyone says ten cents first, because it splits the amount neatly, and checking it takes about four seconds. This is the one where quick and careful people separate.
If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long would 100 machines take to make 100 widgets?
Why ask it
Five minutes, because each machine takes five minutes per widget and they run at the same time. The tempting answer is 100 minutes, from scaling both numbers up without asking what the rate actually is.
Two people played five games of checkers, each won the same number of games, and there were no draws. How?
Why ask it
They were not playing each other. There is no arithmetic here at all, only an assumption you supplied yourself, which is why it is a good one to end the logic run on.
Which of these have I got wrong at least once myself?
Why ask it
The one honest question in the set, and the reason to end here: admitting the two or three that got you keeps the whole thing from becoming a demonstration of how clever you are. Nobody enjoys being quizzed by someone who is only enjoying the winning.
How to Run These Without Being Insufferable
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to Ask Them
Know the answer cold before you ask
Half of these get disputed, and if you cannot explain why nine sheep are left in one clean sentence, you lose the room. Read the explanation before you ask the question.
Two or three, not twenty
Trick questions have a short shelf life in one sitting. After about the third, she stops answering and starts hunting for the catch, which kills every remaining question in the list.
Say them fast and plainly
Announcing here is a tricky one puts her on alert and most of these depend on the sentence sounding ordinary. Drop them into normal conversation instead.
Let her win the argument sometimes
The alphabet one and the birthday one are genuinely arguable. Conceding cheerfully when she has a point is what keeps this a game rather than a test.
Hand her the list afterwards
The real payoff is her using them on someone else the next day. Being on the same side of the joke beats being on opposite sides of it.
The Four Traps at Work
The swapped word
Moses for Noah, silk before milk. The sentence pattern is so familiar that one wrong word inside it goes unheard. These are the ones that stop working the moment you slow down.
The hidden assumption
Buried survivors, roosters laying eggs, two people playing checkers against each other. You supply a premise nobody stated. These are the most satisfying to explain because the answer was available the whole time.
The arithmetic shortcut
The bat and ball, the machines, the pills. A plausible number arrives before the actual relationship is checked. People who are good at maths fall for these more often, not less, because the shortcut is faster for them.
The question about the question
Letters in the alphabet, birthdays. You are asking about the words, not the thing. Use one of these at most, or she will start reading every question as a pun and answer none of them.
When to Skip This Entirely
- Over text they land badly. There is no timing, she can search the wording in a second, and a correction in writing reads colder than it sounds out loud.
- Not in front of her friends or family the first time. Being caught out is only funny when it is private, or when everyone present is getting caught in turn.
- Not if she has had a hard day. These require someone to be willing to be briefly wrong, which is the last thing anyone wants after being wrong all day at work.
- Never as a comeback in an argument. A trick question in the middle of a disagreement reads as scoring a point, and it will be remembered as one.
- Stop the moment she asks you to. The tell is short answers with no guess attached, which means she has decided the game is at her expense.