[We answered this rhetorical question a few years ago, but the vintage illustration is "new," courtesy of Punch, 1877.]

Q: How many beans make five?

A: It’s something of a trick question.  The answer is "one."  One leguminous pod contains five seeds.

Note that this riddle is a corruption of "How many beans make fava."  Again, the answer is "one," though admittedly it's one very broad bean.

Q: What need of Siege and Conquest in a Play, / When Love can do the work as well as they?  (Elkanah Settle, Ibrahim, the Illustrious Bassa [1676])

A: What need, indeed!

Q: "Aren't red and blue 'off white' too?"  —HBG2

A: It's a gray area.  (Forgive us.)

Here's an image by Jason Paluck showing that red and blue do indeed combine to form off-white.

Q: "Spiritualism" delivers 12,000 Amazon books and five million Google hits.  What are modern magicians doing today that will spark like controversy?

A: "Modern magicians are on the wrong path; they waste their energies upon trifles." —Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Q: "Do the clouds want to chime in on how they think my day went?" (William Keckler)

A: No; however, clouds do want many things:

1. The clouds want to know what they are. (The Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, 1928)
2. The clouds want to be your clothes. (Shidao Xu, Origins of Chinese Cuisine, 2003)
3. The clouds want more elaboration. (Horatio Noble Pym, Odds and Ends at Foxwold, 1887)
4. The clouds want to hide the sun. (Don Marion Wolfe, Language Arts and Life Patterns, 1972)
5. The clouds want to rain on the parade; they have intentionality. (Jonathan C. Smith, Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal, 2011)
6. Clouds want to be fields. (Nichita Stanescu, Wheel with a Single Spoke: and Other Poems, 2012)
7. The clouds want to play. (Kevin R. Fish, Poetic Justice For Nature, 2004)
8. In general, clouds want a full baptism in the sea. (Gaius Glenn Atkins, The Godward Side of Life, 1917)
9. The clouds want to go somewhere. (David Hicks, Ritual and Belief: Readings in the Anthropology of Religion, 2010)
10. Clouds want to be platforms. (Curtis Franklin Jr., Cloud Computing: Technologies and Strategies of the Ubiquitous Data Center, 2009)
11. Fragments of clouds want to align. (Paul S. Ropp, Banished Immortal, 2002)
12. Clouds want to move things around, get a better view where noise comes from. (Devan Malore, The Churning, 2008)
13. Clouds want to blow in and drop rain. (Marianne Sawicki, Crossing Galilee, 2000)
14. Our clouds want to mingle and form an even bigger and better cloud. (Sol Gordon, How Can You Tell If You're Really In Love?, 2001)
15. Clouds want more moisture in order to remain supportive. (Ham Kaima, My Arrogant Friends, 1992)
16. The clouds want to be smoke circles blown over lips. (A. Van Jordan, Quantum Lyrics: Poems, 2007)
17. Hovering dark clouds want to flatten the city. (Chinese Idioms and Phrases, 1977)
18. The clouds want fire from the rocks. (Courtenay Malcolm Batchelor, Folklore, 1952)
19. All clouds want a talent. (Dow Kump, Scooter's Sparking Stone, 2005)

Q: Is this some cosmic joke?
A: It's real estate, for God's sake.
—The Deal, Vol. 5, p. 4 (2007)

Q: "[What's] the proper pronunciation of the triple-m configuration when a vowel is blocking the rear exit[?]"
—Jeff Hawkins

A: Recall that at the end of each episode of "The Dating Game," the host and winning contestants would dramatically blow a kiss to the viewers.  When we make exaggerated kissing gestures, a lip-smacking "mmmwa" sound invariably accompanies the pantomime.  That's the correct pronunciation of the final m in a triple-m configuration, even if the context is quarrelsome.

Jeff Hawkins explores "preemptive rhetoric," in which rhetorical answers deny being asked.  It's a phenomenon we're all familiar with but probably didn't know the name of.  See the link for examples, and consider this freshly personal one:

[The context is that no one at dinner could recall the name of that well-respected character actor.  Hours later, Oddfellow makes a telephone call.]

[The caller picks up and Oddfellow exclaims.]

A: John Malkovich!
Q: Aren't you supposed to be asleep?

Preemptive rhetoric!  Thanks, Jeff!

After fully 27 years, a rhetorical question gets answered during the concert film A Diamond in the Mind.

Simon: [directing a lyric from the "The Reflex" to his keyboardist] "So why-y-y don't you use it?"
Nick: "I'm saving it for later."

"To answer your rhetorical question, 'Does it matter?': It most definitely does matter."
—U.S. News & World Report, Vol. 124 (1998), p. 13

[For Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.]

"Every now and then some people in your audience will try to answer your rhetorical question. If someone offers you an answer, you need to be able to handle the response."
—R. Mark Giuliano, Speak Easy (2005)

"[Harold] Bloom answers the rhetorical question, can we conceive of ourselves without Shakespeare? with a resounding no." —Dominic Pettman, Human Error (2011)

Matthew asks:

Q: What idiot told the blindfolded, naked kid he could play with a bow and arrows, anyway?

A: Greek mythology blames his overindulgent mother Aphrodite.  Roman mythology blames his deadbeat dad, Mars.

Q: Where do I begin?

A: The answer is right there in your kitchen. (Kelly Hancock, Saving Savvy, 2011)

Q: How can I open the door when there is no keyhole?

A: Break through it with words, blows, prayers, or music.

—Leonora Carrington, The Stone Door

"The whole of life consists of nothing but questions which have taken on physical form and which bear the seed of their answer within them, and of answers which are pregnant with questions.  A man who sees anything else in it is a fool."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Golem

From our former outpost at Twitter:


Gary Barwin wittily answers:

June adds:

In the British comedy series "Absolutely Fabulous," a life coach gives this ridiculous "daily aim": "Have a great idea and write a pop song."  We couldn't help but think back on that line when we saw this advice:

This frame is from the hilarious and endearing Mapp & Lucia series, based on E. F. Benson's novels.  We agree with Nigel Hawthorne here — well-chosen words don't write themselves!