“What starts with T, ends with T, and is full of T? A teapot.” This popular riddle has been cited in print since at least 1933.
“How do you turn a T into a P?”/“Drink it” is another tea (“T”) riddle.
7 May 1933, Ogden (UT) Standard-Examiner, pg. 23(?), col. 7:
What starts with T, ends with T, and is full of T?—Ruth Ann Siles.
A tea-pot.
Google Books
The Fun Encyclopedia;
A comprehensive, all-purpose, entertainment plan-book for the home, club, school, church, and playground
By E. O. Harbin
Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press
1940
Pg. 41:
What starts with T, ends with T, and is full of T?
Answer: Teapot.
31 March 1949, Chester (PA) Times, pg. 46, col. 2:
AB: “What starts with T, ends with T, and is full of T?”
CD: “I know that one. It is a teapot!”
Google Books
A diller, a dollar; rhymes and sayings for the ten o’clock scholar
By Lillian Morrison
New York, NY: Crowell
1955
Pg. 22:
What starts with a T, Ends with a T, And is full of T?
(Teapot)
Google Books
The Game of Words
By Willard R. Espy
New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap
1972
Pg. 209:
What starts with T, ends with T, and is full of T?
A teapot.
Google News Archive
12 December 1992, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA), “The Riddle Box,” pg. D4, col. 2:
What starts with T, ends with T, and is full of T?
A teapot.
Google Books
Kids’ Funniest Jokes
Edited by Sheila Anne Barry
New York, NY: Sterling Publishing COmpany, Inc.
1994
Pg. 73:
What starts with T, ends with T, and had T in it?
A teapot.
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
Recent entries:
•“Welcome to growing older. Where all the foods and drinks you’ve loved for years suddenly seem determined to destroy you” (4/17)
•“Date someone who drinks with you instead of complaining that you drink” (4/17)
•“Definition of stupid: Knowing the truth, seeing evidence of the truth, but still believing the lie” (4/17)
•“Definition of stupid: Knowing the truth, seeing the evidence of the truth, but still believing the lie” (4/17)
•“Government creates the crises so it can ‘rescue’ you with the loss of freedom” (4/17)
More new entries...
Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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