Neatorama is happy to announce a new collaboration with Pzzlr, a site where you can always find a riddle to exercise your brain. Can you solve this one?

In 1815 John Smith, a notorious Australian bushranger/outlaw, was captured by members of the 75th Highland Regiment and sentenced to death by firing squad. Unfortunately, the members of this Regiment were renowned for being terrible shots with previous prisoners dying slow painful deaths as a result. Knowing this John Smith begged for mercy.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do”, said the Captain, “as I’m nothing if not a reasonable man. I will allow you to choose where the men stand and will even add another 50 men to the firing squad for a total of 100 men so that at least one of them is sure to kill you. But don’t get any funny ideas. The men cannot stand more than 20 metres away from you and must all be facing you while you must remain tied to the post in the middle of the yard. It’s my knock-off time now and you’re due to be shot later today at 6pm. In the unlikely event that you are not killed outright but only terribly wounded I will, tomorrow, release you from the post so that you can die peacefully.”

To the Captain’s surprise and outrage when he returned in the morning he discovered that John had been set free alive and well. The men explained that it was because of where John had made them stand.

Where did John tell the men to stand? Find the solution at Pzzlr!

Look for a new puzzle here at Neatorama every Wednesday, and check out Pzzlr for a puzzle anytime!

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Sherman Oliver Holmes, a mysterious crime solver and great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes. Can you solve the crime?

"I hate to bother you, Mr. Holmes."

Sherman's neighbor, Mrs. Krenshaw, led him across the street from his house to hers, a tidy Victorian gem set in the pristine white of a recent snowfall. The elderly widow was remarkably self-sufficient and walked with a strong, confident gait.

"I know I ought to go to the police," she said in a fluttering voice. "But Hank and Edgar are both such good friends. If you could find some way of getting my vase back without calling in the authorities..." She pressed her hand into his. "You're so very clever about these things."

Sherman blushed and cleared his throat. "Tell me about the vase, Mrs. Krenshaw."

She spoke eagerly. "You know that TV program, America's Treasures, the one where people bring in antiques and the experts tell where they came from and how much they're worth. Well, I had this old vase handed down to me by my mother. I took it over to the Armory yesterday, where they were filming the show. An expert appraised it at $20,000. It was all very exciting, being on TV and having such a rarity."

"And you think either Hank or Edgar broke into your house and stole it?"

"I don't know what else to think. Look."

Sherman looked. In the middle of the lawn sat a flowerpot on top of a stump. A single set of footprints crossed the snow-covered lawn to the stump then crossed away again toward the front door. Mrs. Krenshaw trampled through the snow to the stump.

"The house was unlocked when I got home from shopping a few minutes ago. I never leave it unlocked. Sure enough, the antique vase was gone. Then I saw these footprints out here. I came right over to you." She lifted the flowerpot and pointed to a key hidden beneath it. "I know it's stupid to leave a key out here like this, but everybody does it."

"Both Edgar and Hank know where you keep your spare key?"

"Yes. And they knew about the vase. I just had to tell them my wonderful news."

Once inside the house, Sherman telephoned Hank, Lyda Krenshaw's next-door neighbor, and Edgar, a gentleman friend who lived two blocks away. Hank was the first to arrive.

It's once again time for our collaboration with the wonderfully entertaining What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured items are? Can you make up something totally wacky? That's what we're looking for: the funniest and most creative guesses. We will award t-shirts from the NeatoShop to two commenters who post the cleverest, funniest, or most outlandish uses for this thing!

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. You have until Saturday this week to come up swith great guesses.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, see? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

See, you don't have to know the answer to win! And remember, there are more mystery items to figure out at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: it will be another day before the official answers are posted at the What Is it? blog, but since we wanted funny-but-wrong answers, we'll go ahead and award the winners. Erin Werra said, "These are the score cards the Russian judges WANTED to use at the Olympics. They're mounted on handy "persuasion tools" to encourage other judges to lower their scores as well." That one deserves a t-shirt! Randall had a great answer, too: "Gopher traps. Among the animal kingdom, gophers are statophiles, they love esoteric information and are fascinated by trivial numbers. When these are placed in a field inhabited by gophers, the little rodents will burrow right up to the number to read it (they are slightly nearsighted) and POW! it kills them with the spring loaded spike." So Randall gets a t-shirt from the NeatoShop, too! The answers to this and the other mystery items of the week will be posted at the What Is It? Blog on Sunday, and I'll update the contest post then.  

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Sherman Oliver Holmes, a mysterious crime solver and great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes. Can you solve the crime?

(Image credit: Chief Supply)

Sergeant Wilson enjoyed an occasional breakfast with Sherman at the Baker Street Coffee Shop. What he didn't enjoy were the homicide calls that so often came right in the middle of the meal. He was just finishing his Belgian waffle with fruit when this morning's call took him to Gleason & Son Insurance, located on a lonely stretch of highway. As usual, Sherman tagged along.

A uniformed officer met them in the parking lot. "The victim is Gary Lovett," the officer told them. "A Gleason & Son employee. That's Neal Gleason and his sister, Patty Lovett. She's the victim's widow." He was pointing to an anxious-looking duo, both in their late twenties. "Mr. Gleason discovered the body at about 8:30 a.m."

Neal Gleason stepped forward. His statement sounded rehearsed. "When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw Gary's car. Gary is often here early, though he's always gone before noon. If Gary wasn't Patty's husband, Dad would've fired him long ago. The front door was open. Right inside the door I saw him, like that."

Wilson examined the body in the doorway. The man's head was a bloody mess, and it took the sergeant a while to realize that the rifle now bagged as evidence had been used as a blunt instrument, its wooden stock having been slammed into his head like a baseball bat. The body was cold and rigor mortis had already come and gone.

"That's my husband's rifle," volunteered the widow. "He kept it here at the office. Last night at home, Gary got this phone call. He said he had to go the office and that I should just go to bed. I thought he might be going to see another woman. This morning when I woke up he was still gone. So I went to find him. I must have arrived here just a minute after my brother did."

"I think we should probably call Dad," Neal said.

That call wouldn't be necessary, for at that exact moment, George Gleason was pulling into the parking lot. The burly insurance broker eased himself out of his Cadillac and wordlessly took in the scene, the body, the bagged rifle, and his two children.

Patty ran up to him. "Someone murdered Gary," she moaned. "The police suspect us, Neal and me."

Hey look! It's time for our collaboration with the wonderful What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? It doesn't really matter if you do, because we are looking for the funniest guesses. You can win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! But first, read the rules:

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners who submit funny and/or clever (albeit ultimately wrong) answers will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

If you guess the correct answer, you'll get a big pat on the back.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

There are more pictures of this thing at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: It's a fisherman's surf sinker, also called a breakaway sinker, spider weight, or grapnel sinker. Neatoramanauts had much better answers. Berhard said it was the "matrix bug" that crawled into Neo's belly (in the only Matrix movie). That's funny-and worth a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Another t-shirt goes to DrWhat who said,

I'm just going to go ahead and state the obvious. It's an electric marshmallow roaster. You poke one marshmallow on each of the four wires and then connect the two leads to your power source. A few seconds later, toasted from the inside out all ready for s'mores.

Congratulations to both! See the answers to all this weeks mystery items at the What Is It? blog.

UPdate #2: Thanks to commenter Anthony Novak, the What Is it? blog has updated their answer for this item. This is a launched grapnel hook for firing into mine fields and dragging back to detonate trip wire mines, patent number 5,448,937.

A pride of lion. A school of fish. A flock of seagulls (wait - that's actually a band).

Why do groups of animals have specific names? You can blame 16th century English gentlemen who wanted to sound cooler by inventing terms of venery (hunting) that later developed into collective nouns we all learned in grade school and loved.

Supposedly, way back in 1486, St. Albans Press in England printed a popular book called "The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms" - later known simply as Book of Saint Albans - that became the "how-to guide" on various aspects of falconry (it has a chapter on what sorts of medicines you can give to your sick hawk, for example), hunting, fishing, and heraldry.

The Book of St. Albans also contained a list of collective nouns of animals - the ones we're familiar with today like "gaggle of geese" - as well as some humorous ones, including "a dilligence of messengers," "a melody of harpers," "a blast of hunters," "a subtlety of sergeants," and a "superfluity of nuns."

But enough history - let's get to the fun part. See if you know the oddest and most delightful collective nouns in the English language.

Click the name of the animals to reveal their collective nouns - see how many you know:

Ferrets A business of ferrets	Sharks A shiver of sharks	Cockroaches An intrusion of cockroaches
Cats A glaring of cats	Kittens An intrigue of kittens	Dogs A cowardice of dogs
Giraffes A tower of giraffes	Lemurs A conspiracy of lemurs	Monkeys A barrel of monkeys.
Porcupines A prickle of porcupines	Rhinoceroses A crash of rhinoceroses	Buzzards A wake of buzzards
Owls A parliament of owls	Ravens An unkindness of ravens	Toads A knot of toads
Lobsters A risk of lobsters	Snails A hood of snails	Ants A bike of ants

(Monkey Photo: Augustus Binu)

So, how did you do?