The mention of words ending in -gry is assumed to be a smoke screen. The rest of the riddle is interpreted to mean “What is the third word in the three-word phrase the English language?
2. There are three words in the English language that end in -gry. One is hungry and the other is angry. What is the third word. Everyone uses this word every day. . . . Those who prefer this version of the riddle say that the answer is the word “what.” Notice that the sentence “What is the third word” is not followed by a question mark, so it’s not a question; it’s a statement of the answer, “What is the third word.” Here again, the words ending in -gry are supposedly just a smoke screen. We don’t know if either of these explanations is the true solution to the riddle, but we assume that the solution (if it exists at all) is along these lines. Again, there are only two common words in English that end in -gry: angry and hungry.
