ABSTRACT
Word play refers to the adaptation or use of words for enjoyment and learning, and it is accomplished by manipulating the meanings, sounds, formations, and positions of words and letters within words. Word play serves several critical purposes in the home and at school. Hink pink riddles probably have been around as long as language itself. No one knows when they first were used, interest in these riddles has strengthened, and they have been described and exemplified by numerous researchers. Hink pink–type riddles contribute to young people's development of several language components: vocabulary and reading comprehension, linguistic challenges, rhyme, differences and similarities in synonyms and related words, and homographs (i.e., multiple-meaning words) and homophones (i.e., words with the same sound but different spellings and meanings). Linda Gibson Geller points out, solving hink pink riddles "represents an exercise in descriptive use of language" and "the requirement that the answer be in rhyme and meter stretches the student's linguistic creativity and originality."
