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<pre wrap="">
Adam Thornton wrote:
Why IS a raven like a writing-desk, anyway?
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<pre wrap="">Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
The answer I gave twenty years ago and appears in various faqs:
They both have inky quills.</pre>
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From Cecil Adams:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1173/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk">http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1173/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk</a><br>
<p class="answer">Lewis Carroll himself got bugged about this so
much that he was moved to write the following in the preface to
the 1896 edition of his book:</p>
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<p class="answer">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, tho they are <em>very</em> 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.</p>
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<p class="answer">Did this discourage people? No. They figured, that
dope Carroll, he's too dumb to figure out his own riddle, setting
aside the halfhearted attempt just quoted. So they ventured
answers of their own, some of the more notable of which are
recorded in Martin Gardner's <em>The Annotated Alice</em> and <em>More
Annotated Alice</em>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for
being musical notes. (Sam Loyd, 1914) </li>
<li>Because Poe wrote on both. (Ibid) </li>
<li>Because there is a B in both and an N in neither. (Aldous
Huxley, 1928) </li>
<li>Because it slopes with a flap. (Cyril Pearson, undated)</li>
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