I Met a Man on the London Bridge Riddle: Solved
What is the answer to the famous ‘I Met a Man on the London Bridge’ Riddle?
I Met a Man on the London Bridge Riddle
A simple, yet surprisingly challenging, word riddle has recently been trending on the internet and many are struggling to find the solution. The riddle, which is shown below, gives you only three sentences and no picture. With this limited information, you must determine the mans name and win the guessing game.
If you want to try and solve the ‘I Met a Man on London Bride’ riddle on your own, carefully read the riddle below and play with it in your mind for a while until you figure out the answer. And, if you want to see the I Met a Man on the London Bridge Riddle Answer, keep scrolling down to the bottom of this post for a full explanation.
Now, let’s take a look at the riddle:
I met a man on London Bridge. He tipped his hat and drew his name and cheated at the guessing game. What was the man’s name?
At first glance, this famous riddle probably seems nonsensical. How can there possibly be enough information to determine the man’s name? We promise you that the riddle itself gives you enough information to figure out the answer, but it will surely take some mental effort to solve this one.
Again, if you want to try to solve the riddle on your own, pause now. Otherwise, continue reading to see the answer and explanation.
I Met a Man on the London Bridge Riddle Answer
Are you ready to learn the answer to the I Met a Man on the London Bridge riddle?
Answer: The man's name is Andrew.
The charm of this simple riddle lies in how it steers the reader down a literal path of interpretation, while actually hiding the answer in plain sight. The man’s name, which is Andrew, is hidden in the riddle itself (hence why we stated that no additional information was needed to solve the riddle).
Additionally, the I Met a Man on the London Bridge riddle is extra tricky when you have the words read aloud to you, rather than reading them in written form.
Either way, the man’s name is included in the riddle in the line “he tipped his hat and drew his name.” The misdirection here is that the word drew is not a physical action, but actually a cleverly disguised nickname.
The name Drew is short for Andrew, so the answer to the riddle is that the man’s name is Andrew.
Conclusion
The I Met a Man on the London Bridge riddle is an awesome example of how a few simple statements can be used to bend and divert your assumptions and perceptions of meaning. The riddle uses our tendency to look for explicit information when solving problems against us by using misdirection.
In addition to being an enjoyable brain exercise, solving the I Met a Man on the London Bridge riddle reminds the reader that we often make assumptions and apply mental biases when solving problems, which can cause us to make simple problems more complicated than they need to be and overlook solutions that are often right in front of our face from the very start.
So, working on riddles like I Met a Man on the London Bridge is a great way to remind ourselves to approach solving problems with an open mind, to apply outside-of-the-box thinking, and to do your best to not allow presumptuous thinking to narrow your perspective.
