Hard Riddle i guess!!

Limwell

This is a tough one for me and i cant guess what is really the answer. Maybe one intellegent person here could do so.

I am found on every playground.
I am found in every office building
I am long... but also short
I am fat but sometimes skinny
I make dogs bark
And fat people cry
You can place a bet on me
I have more numbers than a phone book
I am lighter than a feather... but i have enough strength to kill a black bear..
Colleges despise me and preschoolers love me...

What am I?

micromass

Easy, it's Chuck Norris

micromass

Wait, I actually got it!! The answer is "something"!! Yeey!

Fewmet

I'd buy that except for the "colleges" line. Nobody hates Chuck Norris.

QuarkCharmer

n/m im wrong...

Ryumast3r

Nothing?

That's the closest one I have found to fitting all of the above descriptions... though it hardly comes close if you look at it from a purely scientific standpoint. If you look at it from a more... comedic standpoint... then nothing could very well work.

I like Serena

I think it's "risk".

I'm still puzzling to make it fit all of the statements properly though...

Fewmet

The risk with thinking about a riddle when even the giver (the OP in this case) doesn't know the answer is that you put in lots of creative energy only to find out the answer is neither compelling or satisfying. A child who had experience with answering hard riddles once asked me "What is very big and you throw garbage in it?".

Hours later he gave me the answer "the ocean".

I begin to wonder if the same kid posted to the site Limwell got this riddle from...

My intuition is telling me that it is not going to be a "Capitalized Essence" like Truth, Time or Nothing.

I tried to make it have the same answer as this one (by Jonathan Swift):

We are little airy Creatures,
All of diff'rent Voice and Features,
One of us in Glass is set,
One of us you'll find in Jet,
T'other you may see in Tin,
And the fourth a Box within,
If the fifth you shou'd pursue,
It can never fly from you.

A Google search for the first line will give you the answer for it, if you are interested. I think of it as a use-mention answer because some lines describe the thing and others relying on the use of it.

DavidSnider

Bacteria? Something like that. Not sure how the "you can place a bet on me" fits in or why you'd single out fat people.

Fewmet

Maybe that you can bet on it being wherever you look? Or that when you physically "place" a bet or anything) on any surface there is likely to be bacteria there. (I know: it's pretty weak.)

The thing about numbers is what I keep failing to make fit.

I like Serena

Risk is about numbers, that is, if you start calculating risks.

Risk assessment is a major mathematical branch in insurance companies and in safety-engineering. At least worth more than a couple of phone books. :)

Fewmet

I was just looking at the riddle again and thinking about odds being long and short.

micromass

Nobody likes my "something"-answer? It fits every line

I googled it, and apparently, people have been searching this for over 3 years...

I like Serena

Well, "something" does more or less fit, I have to agree.
But is seems too generic to me.
It doesn't quite ring true.

And for instance: "Colleges despise it"?
Only in a mathematical sense that "there exists" something.

[edit] I see what you mean by googling it!
There are a couple of very long threads about it already!
But did you find one where people actually agree that "something" is the best solution? [/edit]

I like Serena

I like "odds".

It certainly fits a couple of statements (like long and short) better than "risk", but not all.

Fewmet

Sorry, micromass: I took it to be an extension of your previous joke.

Yes, it fits but I expect riddles to have compelling answers.

Consider this, for example:
What is greater that God and worse that the devil?
A rich man needs it, but a poor man has it.

"Something" works there, but "nothing" is far more compelling.

Or "What is broken by speaking its name". "Something" works there there, too, but "silence" is satisfying.

Come to think of it, perhaps with "something" you've found the universal answer!

regor60

daydreams, or, if you are a cynic re colleges, dreams