Ok I know that technically this is not a question, it’s more of a riddle. But I have a lot depending on finding the answer so here goes.
I got asked this by a friend:
A blind person, a mute person and a deaf person are friends. All 3 r married (to 3 separate women) and all 3 live together. One day the deaf person’s wife beats up the blind person’s wife (don’t ask me why). The only witness to this event is the mute person. Now the wife doesn’t want to tell her husband about this coz she is worried abt the consequences and so are the other wives so they don’t want to get involved either. The mute guy can’t hide this from his friend and wants to tell him. The question is how.
Oh and all of them r illiterate, poor and don’t know any form of sign language (braille, morse etc.)
This is a hypothetical situation so don’t ask me how they survive.
According to my friend the answer doesn’t involve a 3rd person. Apparently the clue is ‘confident’ but I don’t know if that was genuine or just to confuse me even further.
He hangs around the deaf man. Because the deaf man knows that he can’t tell anything he will speak openly about the beating in front of him. The mute has a cheap recording device?
So the question is, essentially, how can a mute person communicate with a blind person or a deaf person without using sign language or writing?
I assume he would use a sort of pidgin sign language like charades. Surely the people who live (excuse me, r living: how hard is it to type a three-letter word?) in this situation are already aware of some friction between the women. Mr. Blind has probably heard Ms. Blind sobbing and felt her wince when his gentle caress ran across her black eye. Mr. Deaf can see his wife’s winded but triumphant self hanging the striped curtains that were at the root of this disagreement. (Mrs. Deaf is color-blind; I bet your riddler forgot to mention that, but it’s key to solving the problem.) All Mr. Mute has to do is tap Mr. Deaf on the shoulder and mime a slight, raven-haired beauty clutching her eye and cowering in terror, and then, with one hand on the truly hideous curtains that somehow are so important to Donna Deaf and an angry expression, threaten to wallop the space where he was cowering a moment before. I think it would be pretty clear, and Dave Deaf can take care of describing the scene to Barry Blind.
I’ll assume that “no sign language of any kind” includes pantomime. And they’re all illiterate. (Seriously, this group of people needs help from Social Services.)
I guess the mute man could draw a simple cartoon that the deaf man could understand, depicting Mrs. Deaf beating up Mrs. Blind. Of course, Mr. Deaf might choose not to tell Mr. Blind about it.
If the clue is ‘confident’, then perhaps Sr Siete had the right idea. Just hang around the wives with a recording device and catch them blabbing about the incident.
Also, can the solution be that the mute man had a camcorder with him and taped the whole incident already?
Well, riddles like this normally have some dumbass twist.
Normally the wording of the puzzle is deliberately misleading, in such a way that you won’t arrive at the correct answer. Are you sure that you’ve worded it exactly as your friend said?
Some of the kinds of twist I can imagine there being:
Two of the people are married to each other.
The beating was self-inflicted.
There are other people living in the house than just the three couples.
Someone is psychic.
Actually, couldn’t the mute mime the beating to the deaf guy? If they’re all good friends he’d probably be able to mime the two wives such that the deaf guy would know who he meant.
Well I tried all those answers and none were right. A few clarifications:
a. By’ to his friend’, I meant mr.blind
b. Yes I think i have worded it accurately enough, I even made him clarify my post
c. They are married to 3 seperate women
d. No lip-reading or sign language of any kind.
e. The answer involves direct communication btw mr. mute and mr.blind.
I have an IQ of 145 and even * I* am ready to give up, the only reason I am holding hope is coz there is reward of £500 for the right answer (the cocky bastard)…:S
If you google “blind mute deaf riddle” [sans quotes], you find lots of people asking variations of this riddle. So far, I have not found anyone giving the answer.
OP: Does your friend claim to know the answer? If so, will he tell you the answer? If not, did he make it clear that he doesn’t know the answer? Asking someone a riddle that you don’t know the answer to is a fairly useless exercise. How will either of you know whether the answer you come up with is correct?
Well, the blind man can talk. So all the mute guy has to do is tap him on the shoulder (or something) whenever he says the right word. So, in the course of a couple of weeks, I imagine you could communicate quite sophisticated concepts. Quicker if the blind guy was cooperating.
A contrived example:
Blind guy chattering away: “I want to borrow deaf (tap) guy’s (tap) hammer. I promised the wife (tap) that I’d install some shelves. Of course, being blind, I’ll probably beat (tap) the (tap) bloody (tap) hell (tap) out (tap) of (tap) myself and have to borrow your (tap) first aid kit. Still, gotta keep the wife (tap) happy.”
‘Mute’ can mean ‘unable to speak’. But it can mean other things. He could be a professional mourner, or a man who sells devices that modify the sound made by musical instruments. See: mute.
Another technique possibly within the parameters of the riddle. We do not know how mute the mute guy is. If he can whistle popular tunes, then you can certainly code messages according to the lyrics or titles of the popular song.
Another contrived example:
Whistle song titled with name of deaf guy’s wife. (There is almost certainly a song with such a title.)
Whistle song “We’ve got the beat” by the Go Gos. Use the “tap” code mentioned in my previous post to figure out the key word or words.
Whistle song titled with name of blind guy’s wife.
Presumably, Mute Guy can hear and Blind Guy can speak. (And the fact that the other guy is deaf is a red herring since “the answer doesn’t involve a 3rd person.”)
So I’d say Mutey should go up to Blindey, take Blindey’s hands and place them on his (Mutey’s) head. Blindey would probably get the hint and start asking Mutey questions, to which he could feel him either nodding ‘yes’ or shaking ‘no’. They’d find their way to the point soon enough.
As others have said, though, the answer – if there is one – is probably much sillier than this.
As an aside, unless you’ve been tested by a professional psychologist, you don’t know your IQ. Those supposed “IQ tests” you find online are completely worthless-- A blindfolded monkey could score above 100 on most of them.
I have a prediction, Kilobyte70. Eventually you will give up and ask your friend for the answer. The answer will involve twisting the words of the riddle in a totally arbitrary way. You will point out that you could twist the words of the riddle in several other ways that don’t seem to be as arbitrary to you which would also yield answers. Your friend will object that his way of twisting the words is legitimate while your ways of doing it are cheating. You will never resolve this argument. If I were you, I would give up right now and simply forget about the riddle. If he insists on telling you his answer, say, “O.K., that’s nice,” and then forget about it.
