Patos and penguins
Sunday, 28 December 2008
There are myriad rhyming arithmetic riddles (chistes, I think…) out there, including (possibly especially) in Spanish. I think this is one I heard in Oaxaca some time ago….
Un pato con una pata, ¿cuántos patos y patas hay?
It employs confusion that is similar to that encompassed by this riddle:
What’s black and white and red all over?*
So: patos are ducks and patas are feet, but also could be a female duck. Therein lies the confusion. Anyway, I was always confused by this riddle (they have never been my strong suit), but I think it says, if there’s a duck with one foot (or a female duck), how many ducks and feet are there? Googling suggests one cheeky answer is “un pato cojo“, meaning a lame duck.
Why do I mention all this? The pastry above is Mexican, and called a pato. And, in this case, no feet…. See how my mind works?
* See, this only works if you hear it, because to be correct you have to spell it “read” not “red”…and the answer is: the newspaper. This is the classic version, anyway. There is a subset of versions that actually rely on “red”, and their answers often refer to gruesome penguins.