Tópico: Why is a raven like a writing-desk?

[Eleitor de Mário Oliveira]

Why is a raven like a writing-desk?
 

[Felius]

Huh?

[Snake]

I don't have any idea.

[Tarcísio]

Zesus! You really did it!

Can't both bawl the national hymn?

:X

[Galileo]

As all readers of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will know, when Alice sat down (uninvited) at the Mad Tea-party, the Hatter opened his eyes very wide and asked, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"  The riddle is famous because when Alice in turn asked "What's the answer?" the Hatter replied that he hadn't the faintest idea.

- from the dust jacket of The Raven and the Writing Desk, by Francis Huxley.

[Fabulous]

I dunno

[Thufir Hawat]

Because the raven, like the writing desk may produce some notes, though very dull ones, and nevar can it be turned backwards.

[Please notice that nevar, which is raven backwards, sounds like the word "never". There's also an obvious ambiguity in the use of the word "notes", which may stand for both musical and written ones.]

This, or something simillar (I don't have an english version of the book to look for the actual quote), was written by the author Lewis Carroll in the preface to the 1897 edition of Alice's adventures in Wonderland. In the same preface Carroll states that this is an idea that only ocurred to him later. The riddle, when originally proposed, had no answer.

[Galileo]

The book I referred to above quotes Carroll's 1896 Preface as follows:

"Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz. 'Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought: the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all."

(I like Thufir's version better!)

But Huxley also mentions some solutions proposed by others:

Sam Loyd, the famous puzzler, suggested, "Because they both should be made to shut up." He also came up with another good one: "Because Poe wrote on both."

A. Cyril Pearson suggested, "Because it slopes with a flap."
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After writing the above, I then went to Google, and found this page, which could have saved me a lot of time!!
 

 

[Eleitor de Mário Oliveira]

Thanks, Galileo!

[Thufir Hawat]

(I like Thufir's version better!) 

Well, thanks Galileo, for both the compliment and the correction, but I still think the best one is Aldous Huxley's:

Because there is a B in both and an N in neither.

[Guinevere]

I believe both the raven and the other thing are a lot alike because they descend from amphibians

[Eremita]

Carrol used to love shrooms, don't he? LOL