The riddle
Why Was the Math Book Sad?
Problems on paper and in life
A math book is full of problems, and so is a bad day. Wiktionary lists problem as a question to be answered, a schoolwork exercise, and as a difficulty that has to be resolved. The book holds page after page of the first kind, while a person with a lot of the second kind has good reason to be sad. The riddle lets the book feel what a person with that many difficulties would feel.
Something thrown forward
The word comes from Ancient Greek problema, which literally means something thrown or put forward. It is built from pro, meaning in front, and ballo, to throw. A problem in the classroom sense is exactly that: something placed in front of a student to be worked out.
Hunting for school words with two jobs
Plenty of classroom words work the same way. A period is a stretch of class time and also a punctuation mark. A table can be a piece of furniture or a chart of numbers. A square is a shape and also what a number becomes when it is multiplied by itself. A group can collect such words and write a question around each one.
A neighbor with a number
Math supplies other jokes that give a feeling to a number, such as why is 6 afraid of 7. The sad book works in print and aloud, and it reads best with a flat, slow voice on the last word.