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the infamous GRY puzzle

The original "GRY Puzzle" went something like this:

Solvable: Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

Unfortunately, most versions of the "gry puzzle" have been ruined by well-meaning people who add words that they believe should be there. BUT ... these badly updated puzzles have no answer because of the way they are worded. To give you an idea, here is one of the unsolvable versions of the GRY puzzle:

Unsolvable: There are only three words in the English language that end in GRY. Two are HUNGRY and ANGRY. The third is one that you use every day. If you've listened carefully, you already know what the word is. What is the third word?

Another of the bastardized versions goes like this:

Unsolvable: Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language that end in g-r-y. What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

These ruined versions are wrongly worded. The people who re-worded the puzzle probably tried to do it by memory, and accidentally misquoted the original puzzle, ending up with statements that are completely false.

These statements are false in the wrongly worded puzzles:

** There are only three words in the English language that end in GRY.

FALSE!!! There are more than three words that end in -gry:

aggry, gry, anhungry, puggry, conyngry, iggry, meagry, nangry, podagry, and many others
(100 "gry" words with meanings are on page 2 of our collection)

** The word is a common word, one that people use everyday

Again, FALSE! None of these additional -gry words are common. None of them are words you use everyday. EVERY "gry" word except hungry and angry are either archaic, outmoded, or part of the language that is practically never used. At least, I don't use any of them very often.

Let's look at the GRY puzzle again!!!

Let's look at the original puzzle again, and remember that it was written to be a verbal puzzle. (This puzzle was not written by an English teacher.) This time, as you read the puzzle, I want you to keep in mind that you already know everything that you need to know in order to solve this puzzle. Also, try to ignore anything you think might be there to distract you from finding the answer.

Solvable: Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

A good riddle usually has a trick to it, the kind of trick that gives you that Ah Ha! satisfaction when you figure out the trick. This puzzle actually has two tricks involved. Can you figure out one or more of the tricks that the author used to mislead you? Think about it as you read the next paragraph. In my opinion, the original author created the gry puzzle as a hoax. The riddle is deliberately tricky. To solve the riddle, you have to figure out what the tricks are.

First Trick - Grammar

The original author must have created the GRY puzzle to be a verbal riddle, because it is not written with correct punctuation. If your English teacher were to write this puzzle, he or she would have added at least two pieces of punctuation. But, if so, it would not be a puzzle, because there would be no trick to it, the answer would be obvious. One trick, then, is in the punctuation. When you figure out the punctuation, you will have figured out one of the two tricks, and you might just know the answer, but don't try to figure it out now. I tell you about it first, because it might help you to see how the other trick affects the puzzle.

Second Trick - Misdirection

The author used misdirection to mislead us. He included information that has no relevance to the puzzle. Do you remember math puzzles where the question included a lot of extraneous information? When you got to the question, you then had to figure out what information pertained to the question and you were supposed to ignore the rest.

An example of misdirection in a math puzzle

Let me give you an example of misdirection. Read this next paragraph to yourself (but you are only allowed to read it once, because this is also a verbal puzzle, one that you would normally ask a friend).

You are a bus driver. At the first bus stop, three people get on. At the second bus stop, one person gets off and five people get on. At the next stop, seven people get on. At the next stop, two people get off and nobody gets on. At the next-to-the-last stop, nobody gets off and three people get on. At the last stop, everybody gets off.

Are you ready for the question? If you are reading this to yourself, quickly cover the paragraph above, then read and try to answer the question below without peeking at what you just read?

Here's the question:

How old is the bus driver?

Or, you could ask yourself
What is the bus driver's name?

I bet you were expecting me to ask a math question, like how many people rode the bus?

In order to solve this transportation puzzle, you need to IGNORE all the extraneous data and only pay attention to the pieces of information that pertain to the question. Read the puzzle again, but this time, read only the first sentence and the final question.

You are a bus driver.
(extraneous data snipped)
How old is the bus driver?

Now, the puzzle is solvable. Sorry, though, I can't tell you the answer, because I don't know how old you are, or what your name is. (By the way, there are a few other tricks that you can play with this puzzle. If you think the person you're reading this puzzle to knows the regular question, you could ask him "How many stops did the bus make?"

Back to the GRY puzzle again

So, you need to reread the original "gry puzzle" and this time, figure out what you need to read, and what you should ignore, in order to get an answer. Here's what I want you to do:

1. Read the puzzle again
   Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?
2. At least one sentence has nothing to do with the riddle. Ignore those sentences.
3. Read the puzzle again, but this time, only read the important stuff.
4. Do all this before you scroll down.

Okay, now that you have done that, let me read the puzzle to you again, but this time, let me phrase it a slightly different way, and see if that helps you see what information is the "red herring" in this puzzle (a red herring is like the "wild goose" in the expression "a wild goose chase." The red herring is the information that sends your mind off in the wrong direction.

Think of people who were born in Portland, Indiana. John Knoderer and David Knoderer are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

Now, do you see what the "red herring" is?

Looking back at the original puzzle, we could ask ourselves what is wrong with the punctuation. Your English teacher would never write the puzzle this way. He or she would have added quotes in one position to make sure that we understood what was being said.

Of course, as I intimated above, our main task is to figure out what sentences have nothing to do with the rest of the puzzle. All that stuff about "GRY" is supposed to make you come up with the wrong answer.

Now, you know the two tricks that you need to pay attention to in order to solve this puzzle. First, ignore the "red herring," and second, figure out what the puzzle really says (add the missing punctuation). Let me help you ignore the "red herring" by crossing out the extraneous information:

Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

Second, we need to add the missing punctuation, and we probably should capitalize one word that wasn't capitalized:

Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in "The English language". What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

Are there only three words in the
English Language that end in g-r-y?

This is the other problem with the puzzle the way that many people write it. When one of the unsolvable versions of the puzzle says, "There are only three words in the English language that end in g-r-y" and "(the third word) is one that you use every day," they are not just using misdirection, they are actually stating falsehoods.

1. There are only three words in the English language that end in g-r-y. 
   False: there are many other words that end in g-r-y, but very few people can think of any of them easily.
2. It is one that you use every day ...
   False: Except for angry and hungry, all the other words are very uncommon, and only someone in a particular industry might use one or another of them everyday. (For example, someone in the bead industry might use aggry almost every day.)

Look back at the first version of the puzzle and you'll see that every statement is true.

• Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them.
  very true, angry and hungry are two of the words that end in g-r-y.
• There are only three words in the English language.
  also true, especially if you remember that this statement, properly punctuated and capitalized, would read: There are only three words in "The English Language."
• What is the third word? The word is a common word, ...
  true, it is a common word
• one that people use everyday, ...
  yep, we use that word everyday (actually, we use what that word stands for, I'm using it right now)
• and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. ...
  yes, I said the word as part of the puzzle.
• What is the third word?

Where did this puzzle come from?

Different people have different opinions, and say that different versions are the original. But nobody can find one of the original graying sheets of paper that were copied and passed out at college campuses years ago. One official source, Lederer, thinks it originated in 1975, but I know that it existed before that time because I remember hearing and seeing the puzzle when I was in college. Since I graduated in 1974, I know it was before 1974. Who knows? I might have met the author, since I remember it before it became famous, and I did go to Indiana University at the same time as the only IU student ever to get a Bachelor's Degree in Puzzles (and that person is now Puzzles Editor at the New York Times).

Some people think that the original puzzle started out with the sentence, "Think of words that end in g or y." When you say that fast enough, it sounds like "G R Y." But then, we end up with lots of words that end in "g" or "y", so the statement that there are "only three words" is still false. Rang, sing, any, or say are all words that end in g or y. With this version of the puzzle, the right answer depends on who you talk to. I even heard one person insist that "say" was the answer to the puzzle because it ends in y and he used the word "say" several times when he told the puzzle. In my opinion, the "G or Y" version was created by someone who heard an impossible version of the puzzle and he manipulated the puzzle into something that he could justify an answer with, even if two different people would come up with two different answers.

The beauty of the original puzzle

Let's look at the original puzzle again:

Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

The beauty of this "original" is that there is only one logical answer, once you get around the trickery. Of course, it helps to see the proper punctuation, which is not in the printed version of the puzzle because it would give it away.

Think of words that end in g-r-y. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in "The English Language." What is the third word? The word is a common word, one that people use everyday, and if you were listening carefully, I have already told you what it is. What is the third word?

See what proper punctuation did to the third sentence? (I never know if I should capitalize Language when I correct the grammar. If it's a title, it should be capitalized.) We have a true statement, no matter how you read it. Look at the phrase "The English language" and tell me how many words are in that phrase or title? Yes, three. There are only three words in "The English Language".

And, as you can see, the first two sentences have nothing to do with the puzzle, other than to confuse you and to make thousands of people search their dictionaries for words that end in -gry. The puzzle really starts with the third sentence, and could have ended after the fourth sentence.

This puzzle could just as easily been written:

There are only three words in "the English language." What is the third word?

Do you know the answer now?

The answer, of course, is "Language". The first two words were "The" and "English".

To review:

• There are only three words in the English Language that end in -gry
  FALSE: there are more than three words that end in -gry
• The third word that ends in -gry is a common word
  FALSE: angry and hungry are the only common words that end in -gry
  A few of the uncommon -gry words are listed here. There are 100 further below.
  • Aggry beads are colored, variegated, glass beads of ancient manufacture, much used on the Gold Coast of Africa; unknown origin; usually used attributively.
  • Shakespeare used anhungry in one of his plays as a synonym for hungry.
  • A puggry, variant form of puggree, is a Hindu scarf or light turban or head-covering wrapped around a helmet or hat which trails down the back to keep the hot sun off of your neck, worn by inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent.
  • A gry is a medieval unit of measurement equaling one-tenth of a line.
  • Conyngry, an obsolete dialectal variant of conyger, means "rabbit warren"
  • iggry or ijri means "Hurry up!" - Egyptian colloquial Arabic pronunciation, brought back after the First World War by members of British and Australian forces who had fought in Egypt.
  • meagry, having a meagre appearance. Obsolete.
  • nangry, A variant form of angry. Obsolete.
  • podagry, Dodder, or the condition of a plant infested with it.
  • Other -gry words are variant spellings, augry is variant for augury, begry for beggary, bewgry for buggery, braggry for braggery

I have found lots of other sites with information. The rest of this letter has some additional information, including 100 -gry words, which has some overlap with the above.

John
(webmaster (at) mazes.com)
www.MAZES.com

P.S. People who enjoy turning phone numbers into words might be interested in knowing that our area code spells GRY, certainly an appropriate area code for the webmaster of www.MAZES.com, a puzzle page. Unfortunately, I couldn't get MAZEMAN as a phone number (because our phones don't have Z's on them), but I did get BYTEMAN. So, I guess that I can call myself "1-GRY-BYTEMAN".

The GRY collection at www.MAZES.com:
Our webmaster's thorough explanation One Hundred Words that end in -gry: Another GRY expert and his explanation A third expert's GRY point of view	www.MAZES.com/gry.htm (this page) www.MAZES.com/gry-2.htm www.MAZES.com/gry-3.htm http://www.word-detective.com/gry.html