# Can You Guess This Three Letter Word?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364
**Category:** The Game Room
**Created:** [March 30, 2025, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364 "2025-03-30T22:18:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/21 "2025-04-01T02:54:29Z")
If the answer is nun, I hate to tell the person who made up the worksheet, but [a lot of nuns don’t wear habits anymore.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/12c4spn/why_dont_more_nuns_wear_the_habit_anymore/) This is particularly true of orders whose members work in the general community, which is the kind of nun a kid would run into in a school.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/22 "2025-04-01T04:55:49Z")
Clearly it’s a monk in front of a window. That looks norhing like hair, a veil, or a wimple.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/23 "2025-04-01T05:28:43Z")
Mine would’ve never gotten “wed” either.
I suspect they would have tried to fit “woman” in there.
And gotten a poor mark.
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### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/24 "2025-04-01T14:47:40Z")
The answer the test creator had has already been posted here, but if it’s not obvious which one:
> **[People stumped as kindergarten homework asks kids to guess a word](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14552191/People-stumped-simple-homework-question-asking-kids-guess-three-letter-word-saying-adults-advanced-degrees-solve-it.html)**
>
> A puzzled mother, believed to be from the US, took to Reddit to share a snap of her child's homework and social media users where left scratching their heads.
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/25 "2025-04-01T16:06:36Z")
Many businessmen no longer wear ties and three piece suits. That has little bearing on which picture best stereotypes them to allow for easy comprehension.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/26 "2025-04-01T17:50:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> Yeah, I don’t think my 5 year old has even heard of nuns and I’m not sure what ages you’d expect to be familiar with them. These are simple words so I wouldn’t think it would be for much older kids.
Your point has validity. OTOH the old adage about _generals always fighting **the LAST** war_ could be applied, in a limited fashion, to pedagogy.
Translated: there’s always the possibility that the publishers didn’t take that into account.
Also: yeah, but you’re a Brit, aren’t you? That place where being a Catholic can get you beheaded? Not that surprising that a five-year old wouldn’t know what to make of a cartoon of a nun. 😉
> [@Cervaise](#):
>
> If that hypothesis is correct, and the puzzle had been presented with an N, then I probably would have figured it out, but it might have taken a little time.
>
> In other words, I would have needed a second to nun.
Go to your room.
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/27 "2025-04-01T17:59:43Z")
A white woman with long hair and an ankle length dress? For the maga crowd the answer would be WIN!
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2025, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/28 "2025-04-01T18:26:21Z")
There must be _some_ place where they call them _wom_s…
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2025, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/29 "2025-04-02T12:42:01Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> Also: yeah, but you’re a Brit, aren’t you? That place where being a Catholic can get you beheaded? Not that surprising that a five-year old wouldn’t know what to make of a cartoon of a nun. 😉
It’s all fine as long as you don’t visit the wrong part of Belfast…
I asked my daughter and she indeed did not know what a nun is. Are they more common in America?
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2025, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/30 "2025-04-02T13:06:40Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> Are they more common in America?
Outside of Catholics, most Americans’ reference is the TV show, _The Flying Nun_ or those “Trouble with Angels” movies in the 1960s. Nuns have pretty much disappeared from American popular culture since then. Contrary to expectations, I have never encountered a habit-wearing nun aboard an airliner.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/31 "2025-04-02T13:14:38Z")
For fun, I ran the picture through Chat GPT and it initially came up with NUN, but eliminated it in its “thinking” as the initial letter was wrong, and settled on “WIG,” though with reservations.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2025, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/32 "2025-04-02T13:18:47Z")
I don’t remember ever seeing a nun firsthand when I was in the States. They were just funny characters on TV and in movies, like _The Sound of Music._
I have, however, seen many nuns since moving to Europe. In Italy, in particular, but not exclusively.
For example: many years ago, I participated in a Segway tour group in Paris. There was probably a dozen of us, zipping around the side streets, going from highlight to highlight.
At one point, one member of our group lost control of his Segway, wiping out and sending himself sprawling in the middle of an intersection.
And the elderly nun on the corner shouted angrily at him, in very sharp French, that he was a stupid bastard and he and the other tourists should get the hell out of Paris.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2025, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/33 "2025-04-02T16:31:16Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> I have never encountered a habit-wearing nun aboard an airliner.
I do a lot, on flights to Asia and Europe, where some orders still wear them.
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### Author:  [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2025, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-guess-this-three-letter-word/1016364/34 "2025-04-02T17:34:26Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> > [@DemonTree](#):
> >
> > Are they more common in America?
>
> Outside of Catholics, most Americans’ reference is the TV show, _The Flying Nun_ or those “Trouble with Angels” movies in the 1960s. Nuns have pretty much disappeared from American popular culture since then.
While not showing up frequently since then, there are at least two prominent pop-culture entertainment vehicles that featured them prominently.
In the 90’s there was the Sister Act movies, which gave rise to a stage musical in 2006. (And apparently a third movie is in planning by Disney.)
Blues Brothers and the awful sequel Blues Brothers 2000 had nuns as well.
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