Why does a crow look like a writing desk?

(After watching the movie, I was puzzled by this sentence, so I searched it, combined with my own understanding, I roughly figured out the meaning of this question, and wrote it down, hoping to help more people .)

The original text of the title sentence is "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

What the Mad Hatter asked many times in this movie is "Alice's Adventures" An unsolvable puzzle written by the original author of "Wonderland" in the book.

People who love this book have tried to give many answers, one of the more famous and interesting answers is this "because there is a B in both and an N in neither."

If this sentence is taken as the answer to the question, it means "there is a B in both and an N in neither." If you do, you will find that it is not right at all, and you will become even more confused. In fact, this sentence means "There is a B in the word both, and there is an N in the word neither."

The interesting thing about this answer is that it is a meaningless answer with a meaningless answer. Although the answer to the question was wrong, it created a gap similar to a cold joke.

There is another answer "because Poe wrote on both."

Poe here refers to the writer Edgar Allan Poe (Edgar Allan Poe), who once In 1845 he published a widely acclaimed poem called "The Raven".

So this sentence can be understood as two meanings:

"Poe wrote on raven." (Edgar Allan Poe wrote about raven.)

"Poe wrote on a writing desk." (Edgar Allan Poe wrote on a writing desk.)

This answer uses a word game to draw in Poe, who is unable to reach the pole, and is smooth but not unreasonable. interesting.

The original author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" added a preface to the reprint of the book more than 30 years after its publication, giving a personal answer to this question.

Original text of the preface:

Auther's Note

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz. 'Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!' This, However, is merely an afterthought: the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

Christmas 1896

(Author's Preface

Readers frequently If you write to me asking if there is an answer to the Mad Hatter's riddle in the book, I might as well give an answer that I think is appropriate, which is "'Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!". This was something I figured out later. When I first wrote the riddle, there was no answer at all.

Christmas 1896)

It can be seen that the author himself cannot give a single correct answer. I really don’t know how he wrote that question back then, and he still worked hard to answer it decades later. It is really cute.

The answer given by the author can be understood in two parts. The first part is "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat."

Note means "note" and "note, note". "Note" here can be understood as "crow's call".

Flat means "flat" and "(color) monotonous". For crows, it can be understood as its cries are monotonous, or its coat color is single.

So the first part can be understood as "You can write on the desk, and the crows can crow, although one of them is very flat and the other is very monotonous." (Translated into Chinese, the pun interest of the original text is lost).

The second part is "it is nevar put with the wrong end in front".

The nevar here is the author who deliberately spelled never wrong, but borrowed the pronunciation and meaning of never. (When some versions of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" were published, the proofreaders cleverly changed nevar to never, which made this sentence difficult to understand.)

This sentence can be understood as two mean.

One is: "Arrange the letters of the nevar in reverse order to become a raven."

The other: "You will never put the desk upside down."

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Similarly, the pun interest disappears after translation.

It is really admirable that the author of the novel and many loving readers can answer a question that is not even intended to have an answer so vividly.

In fact, there are similar riddles in Chinese, such as the following one:

White. (Type an adjective)

The answer can be found above, I wish you good luck:)

In addition, the content of Zate’s reply is as follows, thanks for the addition:

"

2010-04-07 18:47:30 Zate　

I saw someone on campus saying there is no reason why a crow looks like a writing desk

Alice's last time What he said to the Mad Hatter when he came to Wonderland

"I like you"

"Why"

"Because a crow is like a writing desk"

"Why are crows like writing desks"

Alice has no answer

In fact, the answer is that there is no reason

Alice went crazy when she came to Wonderland again The hat kept saying this because he wanted her to remember it

But not only did Alice not remember it, she always thought it was her dream

The mad hatter thought Alice was drinking a dragon Blood used to be nostalgic

But she didn't, so the Mad Hatter said in her ear "You will forget me"

That's probably the case for me I think it’s well written