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You can find me once in one,
You can find me once in four,
You cannot find me in ten,
You cannot find me in five hundred.

You think I am too easy to spot,
That's because you did not find me.

Who am I?

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  • $\begingroup$ I could use some help for that because I don't see a way to reword it without giving up the answer. $\endgroup$
    – A.D.
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:37
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    $\begingroup$ In fairness, the riddle hints there is an obvious answer that should be avoid. $\endgroup$
    – logicean
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:39
  • $\begingroup$ @JLee with your suggestion, you know that O is not the answer, so it invalidate the last hint. At first I wanted to have only the 4 first lines but it was too broad since O will also match. $\endgroup$
    – A.D.
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:44
  • $\begingroup$ OK, that makes sense. I guess the title and the last 2 lines are sufficient. $\endgroup$
    – JLee
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:46

2 Answers 2

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The answer is

The letter I

You can find me once in one,

One is I in Roman numerals.

You can find me once in four,

Four is IV in Roman numerals.

You cannot find me in ten,

Ten is X in Roman numerals.

You cannot find me in five hundred.

500 is D in Roman numerals.

You think I am too easy to spot, That's because you did not find me.

The obvious answer is O (since you can find it in one, four, but not in ten or five hundred).

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    $\begingroup$ Well, nicely done! But I think this means the riddle is too broad. O fits just as well (and that's not just sour grapes :-p ) $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:31
  • $\begingroup$ :) beaten by I minute :) $\endgroup$
    – logicean
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:31
  • $\begingroup$ That was too easy $\endgroup$
    – A.D.
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:39
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I think the answer is

the letter O.

You can find me once in one,
You can find me once in four,
You cannot find me in ten,
You cannot find me in five hundred.

The letter O appears once in each of "one" and "four", but not at all in "ten" and "five hundred".

You think I am too easy to spot,

O appears twice in "too", once in "spot", and looks like a spot itself (circular?)

That's because you did not find me.

Hmph. See pacoverflow's answer for the intended (probably) solution.

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  • $\begingroup$ That's not the answer. You fell for the red herring :) $\endgroup$
    – A.D.
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 19:28

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