7 Puzzles And Paradoxes To Twist Your Brain

5. The Grelling–Nelson Paradox

What is it?

Here we have a linguistic paradox that is more frustrating than being stuck in a traffic jam with a child and a kazoo.

First things first:

An adjective is autological if and only if it describes itself. For example, the English word "English" is autological, as are "unhyphenated" and "pentasyllabic".

An adjective is heterological if it does not describe itself. Hence "long" is a heterological word (because it is not a long word and is shorter than "short"), as are "hyphenated" and "monosyllabic".

Got that? Because it's important.

Anyway, the puzzle is whether the word "heterological" is, in itself, heterological. The problem is that, whichever way you answer it, you automatically contradict yourself.

If you answer yes, then you are saying "heterological" does not describe itself ... therefore "heterological" is not heterological after all.

If you answer no then you are saying that "heterological" describes itself ... therefore "heterological" is heterological, in which case it should contradict itself.

Yeah, but what's the solution?

There isn't one that we know of. Have fun.