Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Mysterious Addressee

You see your colleague at work composing a lengthy email to someone. "To whom are you writing this?" - yo ask. The colleague replies: "That man's father is my father's son." To whom this email could be addressed?

Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!

4 comments:

prluhmann said...

I can think of two people to whom he is writing. He could be writing to his nephew. His nephew's father is the writer's brother, and his brother is his father's son. Second, he could be writing to his own son. The addressee's father is the writer, and the writer is his father's son. BTW -- the question you should ask is properly phrased as "To whom are you writing this?" "Who" is nominative case, and as a preposition the word "to" needs to be followed by the objective case, or "whom".

Claire said...

darn it.. I was going to say the same thing... either his own son or his nephew. "my father's son" could be himself or his brother.. so replace that in the sentence it could either read "That man's father is myself" (meaning he's writing his own son) or "That mans father is my brother" (meaning his nephew. Oh well, I guess I didnt get here fast enough :)

Maria said...

yep, prluhmann is good and fast - scores his 4th point. Thank you also for correcting my English and the thorough explanation.

Claire - there is always tomorrow with more puzzles.

Anonymous said...

His son or nephew.

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.