Language Barrier
Language brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
An elderly pool attendant is starting to get sick of having to open the swimming pool every Monday, so he decides that the pool will remain closed on Mondays from now on. Being of reasonably limited English, he makes up a sign which he hangs from the front gate. What's special about his sign?
NOW NO SWIMS ON MON
Answer
If you spin the sign upside down it will still read the same thing as it did.
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Comments
astro
Sep 24, 2002
| Good one D. |
JTJS
Sep 26, 2002
| NICE ONE! |
angel11 
Oct 03, 2002
| Wouldn't you have to turn it upside down and backwards? |
Floating_dreamer
Oct 06, 2002
| Very visible answer but still good!  |
lilrockclimber
Oct 17, 2002
| i saw this teaser in a book once. did u copy it? or did u originally make it up? |
Flynn
Oct 17, 2002
| Oops! This is a gotcha! I figured it out in 2 seconds flat! "It's a palindrome", I said! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
Very nice! |
dsquared  
Oct 17, 2002
| I have to admit that this is probably one of about 2 or 3 of my teasers that I got from somewhere else. A friend told me it and I thought I would share it. I thought it was quite neat.
Angel.. no, you try it, write it on a piece of paper and simply 'spin' the paper around as if you had put a pin in the centre of the paper so that it is upside down.
Lalael, yes I guess it is simple, don't know about pre-school simple but I imagine it's still fun.
Thanks everyone for stopping by and voting and commenting.
D^2. |
jucy-lu
Oct 17, 2002
| well i liked it!!!!!!!! |
adamant545
Oct 17, 2002
| ditto w/ wut u said the person before i wrote this comment ;) |
jizzyhuggs
Oct 17, 2002
| hey, this was cool, but I have to admit, my 7 year old got this one too. |
Bigsurf18
Oct 17, 2002
| I have to say, right when i saw the solution, i still didn't think it'd work out, then when i wrote it out, it worked nicely! Great Teaser! Keep em up! |
doggyxp
Oct 18, 2002
| pretty good : ) |
something
Nov 11, 2002
| well, jizz, from what i've heard, your seven-year-old is a child prodigy? |
heather777
Jun 26, 2003
| I heard this one at school and I forgot what it was and it's been bothering me so thanks |
lizriddle
Oct 20, 2003
| that was the easiest brain teaser i have ever read. I wonder who can even consider that to have the title, "brain teaser." |
MattM462
Oct 20, 2003
| That's cool. A "funny kid" can't turn it upside down!! |
spazgurl
Oct 21, 2003
| great one |
Chelsie
Oct 25, 2004
| 
a tad simple ... |
Mad-Ade
Oct 25, 2004
| nice of you to admit it here.... |
dsquared
Oct 25, 2004
| Wow, there's been a few visitors since I last stopped by. Thanks for all the comments. Chelsie, I hope you don't make anyone feel stupid because you proclaim that it's simple yet others may not find it so... teasers can be like that you know. . |
melybug
Oct 26, 2004
|  i got it in a few seconds (one of the only ones mind u!!) any way it's a good one though i've read it in a book before did u copy or just hear it and decided to put it on?b
|
MrIxolite
Oct 27, 2004
| Just because it is simple doesn't make it any less clever. |
wawa132
Oct 27, 2004
| The answer to this is wrong, if you flip the message upside down the ms and ws will switch. |
MrIxolite
Oct 28, 2004
| er..yes they will...your point? |
Tongue-Twister
Oct 30, 2004
| I guessed that it didn't say "one" in between "NOW NO SWIMS ON MONDAY"  GREAT TEASER!  |
StepIntoNoWhere
Nov 15, 2004
| lol.. good one.. could have been a little harder.. I figured it out.. over all good though. |
dsquared
Nov 17, 2004
| Hmmmm, busy busy again. Thanks for the comments. |
centerofme
Sep 30, 2005
| i thought now no swims on monday.it would read backword. |
Unraveled
Oct 16, 2006
| Great one! It didn't take too long to figure out, but the way you incorporated the clever word trick into a story was fabulous |
dsquared
Oct 16, 2006
| Thanks |
calmsavior
Dec 16, 2006
| ambigram |
cloughme
Nov 28, 2007
| Cute... but very easy....  |
neal_venables
Nov 28, 2007
| Very, very nice
Not just a palindrome, but a palindrome with rotational symmetry as well. I wonder if there's a special term for sentences that meet those two criteria? |
britocas
Nov 28, 2007
| Easy still nice palindrome |
darthpotterbob
Nov 28, 2007
| u guys its not really a palindrome... it wouldnt be the same if it were read backwards...
anyw/ great teaser! a little too easy tho, i got it pretty quick. |
2ndhandrose
Nov 28, 2007
| FIRST THINGS 1ST ... CAN WE GET
NOT "AWESOME 100" OFF OF
HERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2ND I liked the teaser. I got it
in about 2 minutes. I never knew
what a palindrome was. Now I do.
I had fun solving it.
Thanks for submitting it. |
bradon182001
Nov 28, 2007
| I agree with Rose about Awesome 100's comment being uncalled for. And I also agree that this teaser is fun and easily solved. Good job.  |
rameherhard
Nov 28, 2007
|  thought it was a very lame and boreing |
saleprice
Nov 28, 2007
| got it immediately.
Palindrome, it made my day to be right so early for a change LOL |
teri12265
Nov 28, 2007
| It wasn't 'simple' or boring. In fact, only one person truly got the answer - that was Calm Savior. The type of teaser this is, is called an ambigram. (A palindrome is a word/phrase/etc. that can be read the same forward and backward. An ambigram is more artistical. Remember the Da Vinci Code and the symbols? Those were ambigrams. Ambigrams can be read the same or make different words/pictures in different positions.)
Have a great day, everyone! =) |
jaydeco
Nov 28, 2007
| That was fun!!! |
doehead
Nov 28, 2007
| Pretty easy for me.
GROWUP AWESOME |
tommysmo
Nov 28, 2007
| enjoyed it though i found it very easy... |
j279
Nov 28, 2007
| First of all, it's not a palindrome. It can't be read the same way backwords and forwards. Secondly, neat teaser! Easy, but that's not a bad thing. |
j279
Nov 28, 2007
| Oops! Just realized I spelled "backwards" wrong in my previous comment! |
avonma
Nov 28, 2007
| Upside down and backwards! Neat! Thanks! |
djryce
Nov 28, 2007
| For the last time, people. This is NOT a palindrome. It does NOT read the same backwards to forward. If you read it backwards, it would make no sense.
It's an ambigram, because you have to flip it upside-down. |
dogg6pound9
Nov 28, 2007
| i found this teaser fun and easy, but that doesnt mean that it would be easy for everybody... awesomes comment was deleted before i got here, which by the looks of it, was a good thing... i liked this teaser and never saw it before until now... thanx and keep 'em coming |
dogg6pound9
Nov 28, 2007
| so sorry... i need to correct my grammar... my statement should read "doesnt mean it will" |
moody12345
Nov 28, 2007
| Nice one!  |
4demo
Nov 28, 2007
| Easy but clever and fun! |
Stupidenator
Nov 28, 2007
| No you people its not a
P A L I N D R O M E
its just the same upside down.
|
auntiesis
Nov 28, 2007
| I got it quite quickly, but I think it is very clever, very clever indeed. I truly enjoyed this teaser. Many thanks. |
Hungrygit
Nov 28, 2007
| Liked it, nice. |
josciehabick
Nov 28, 2007
| i so did not get that |
kasiecom
Nov 28, 2007
| just rotate 180 degrees, just 1 action instead of turning upside down nd backwards, 2 actions. TOOsimple for here |
katjojo
Nov 28, 2007
| Very cute!! |
IlikeWAFFLES
Nov 28, 2007
| Does it matter............
|
jabdr
Nov 28, 2007
| Easy but cute....no matter what it is or isn't (Happy to say I don't 'see' awesome 100's remarks.) The system works |
hipeople
Nov 28, 2007
| that is funny |
composer
Nov 28, 2007
| This is an actual event from M C Escher's childhood. It was an epiphany for him (or at least an inspiration - can't find my book right now...). |
Madelulabelle
Nov 28, 2007
| Great teaser, I got it fairly easily because all during algebra this week I've been writing messages on my calculator by turning it upside down. (4=h, 3=E, 7=L, 0=O; 0.7734=hELLO!)
Yeah, my mom got kinda mad at me, because I stupidly kept showing my discoveries to her! (I'm homeschooled) |
AuthenticallyMe
Nov 28, 2007
| The capital letters stood out to me, so I read that sentence and I figured out the answer before I read the whole teaser...pretty wierd how I could get to exactly where this teaser was going...
Well, this teaser was awesome! Thank you so much for sharing this teaser with us here at Braingle! |
mondayschild59
Nov 30, 2007
| That one was easy peasy. I like it anyway. Sometimes they just jump out at you, and then sometimes you can't see for lookin.
Thanks
Monday~ |
dsquared
Jan 29, 2008
| Thanks so much for all the comments. Missed the gem from awesome. Good to see there are still those types around on Braingle . Just so everyone knows, and I'm not sure if I already shared this but this is not a dsquared original I did receive it somewhere at some point and thought it a good one to share. |
(user deleted)
Nov 28, 2008
| I'm sure many folks have enjoyed your submission, Dsquared. Originality not important ! Difficulty not important ! Sharing is !!!
And for your teachings, Composer and Teri12265, thanks too, though technically, if you fold the expression over its horizontal line of symmetry, the " Ns " are backwards. So not a 100% true Ambigram, but only 99%.
That 1% discrepancy was enough to fool many into thinking forwards and backwards is identical [ Palindrome ].
But our imaginations didn't worry about that minor technicality. It certainly didn't spoil our fun and SATISFACTION, jumping to a quick solution, often before finishing the reading of the sign.
Your storyline was well written, and I admire your clever touch in the title.
Many thanx !!! |
dsquared
Jan 21, 2009
| Bit late steve8rox, but thanks so much for your well thought out words. |
Prinesca 
Apr 29, 2010
| Great teaser! |
beyonce123
Jun 15, 2010
| I started to read it as a palindrome but then I was like nooo... And then it jumped out at me. |
crocodile
Nov 28, 2010
| I thought it was a palindrome, but I guessed the correct answer as I clicked the 'Show Answer' button..... Darn! |
phyllisa
Nov 28, 2010
| Great teaser. |
squeakQT
Nov 28, 2010
| cute, i give up on these things way to easy though, i read it, looked at the question, shrugged and said "oh well", and then looked at the answer |
XRiddleDragonX
Nov 29, 2010
| Easy, but good! I got it the second I read it, but that was just me. ^^ Great Teaser! |
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