Ever been shocked at what some people don't know?

[Ravenman]

I knew a very well regarded history professor in Britain whose field is primarily 19th century European history. He somehow ended up lecturing a class that was discussing the beginning of WW2. He insisted that Pearl Harbor was such a shock to the American people because of the distance between Hawaii and the West Coast. When American students were puzzled, he explained that it is only 400 miles or so, meaning that it if the Japanes could strike at Hawaii, Los Angeles and San Francisco were similarly vulnerable.

On an early date with one girl, I mentioned something either about David Broder or George Will (can't remember which). The girl had no idea who that was. I was speechless. I'm not exactly sure why that was so surprising to me, but upon reflection, those aren particularly famous people.

I didn't know birds could lay unfertilized eggs. I never thought about it.

[Obeseus]

I had a Wal-Mart cashier who didn't know that 2 hrs = 120 minutes. I requested to add 2 hours to my calling card. The cashier looked at the keypad and got all confused.

She (approx age 40) said, "I can't do that."
Me: But I always add 2 hours at a time.
Her: But you said 2 hours. I have to do it in minutes. How many minutes would that be?
Me, sarcastically: Well, let's see. There are 60 minutes in an hour, so I guess two hours would be 120 minutes.
Her, oblivious to my sarcasm: Oh, thanks. That worked.

[Pyper]

Originally Posted by Crafter_Man

As an adjunct professor, I teach a number of math courses at a local private college.

Most of the students do not know their times tables.

When I write (8)(4) = on the board, I am met with stares. They do not know (8)(4) = 32. They have never memorized their times tables.

I am betting that what they do not know is (n)(n) is the same as n x n. Not that they don't know what eight times four is.

[jjimm]

I had a friend from uni who came to stay in my house for a few months. We once had the following conversation, the outcome of which was probably indicative of a greater problem in our friendship:

Me: ...so the poor guy lost an eye, and didn't feel confident to drive any more.
Her: Why on earth not?
Me: Because he couldn't see in 3D any more.
Her: You don't need two eyes to see in 3D.
Me: Well you do. With one eye you can certainly function well, and parallax will help, but you definitely need two eyes for your brain to get a full 3D image of stuff.
Her: You are so full of shit.
Me: Hold on. You have two eyes for a reason. Each eye gives you a slightly different view. Your brain puts them together and builds up a three-dimensional view of the world around you.
Her: Excuse me, I studied set design and I know that's not true.
Me: Why do we have two eyes then?
Her: To help you see better!
Me: Close one eye and then try to pick up that pencil.
Her: Fuck off, I'm not a performing monkey.
Me: Goes to the shelf with the Encyclopedia Brittanica and hands her the relevant article.
Her: Slamming book shut without reading it. Oh you're so fucking full of yourself!

This was the same girl who, when we learned of an unspeakable tragedy in another friend's life, said she felt guilty because she wasn't there for him with her aromatherapy bottles. I kept my mouth shut at that one.

[jjimm]

Originally Posted by Candyman74

Yup. He's the American Fred West, right?

I have vague knowledge of the murderer. Couldn't name his victims, though. Can't name Jack the Ripper's, either, and at least he was on the same continent as me!

Go to Wikipedia and spend a good half hour's reading about Charles Manson. Roman Polanski's wife was a victim, one of the Beach Boys was an unwitting accessory, the Beatles were an inspiration. He got pretty young girls to carve swastikas in their foreheads and kill a pregnant woman. He's inspired many artworks of many forms. And he didn't physically murder anyone (regarding the murder for which he was convicted).

So much more glamorous and... entertaining than our parochial little monster.

ETA: could Fred West have said this?!

[Ambivalid]

I have been amazed, truly amazed, at the number of people I have met over the years who have been shocked and surprised when they witnessed me picking up and crossing my paralyzed legs; with my hands and arms of course. They thought, assumed, that a paralyzed limb was more akin to a petrified limb, so any sort of movement like what they saw from me made them think that I wasn't actually paralyzed; rather just hurt in some other more temporary way. "Oh, so can you walk then?", would be a typical question in such situations when someone would see me pick up and move my legs with my hands.

I've been shocked that some people don't know that paralyzed doesn't mean petrified.

[River Hippie]

About a week before the last presidential election, Sarah Palin made an appearance here in my city. It was a fairly big deal here. There was a bunch of us standing at the time clock at work waiting for it to click over so we could leave. One woman says to another "Heather, you going to see Sarah Palin tonight?" It was a joke really, no one would have seriously thought Heather (mid thirties) would go to a political rally. But I was kind of shocked that Heather had absolutely no clue who Sarah Palin was. Nothing. I don't think she had ever heard the name. Two days before the election. She was not kidding...not a clue.

[Senegoid]

A few years ago I had a conversation with a female person. (That in itself is an infrequent thing.) She is just 2 years younger than me, meaning about 56 at the time. This is in somewhat-ritzy Northern California area, where she lived all her life. In the conversation, somehow the Cold War came up. She didn't know what that was. As I began to explain, it became clear that she knew essentially NOTHING about it.

[Little Nemo]

I once had a friend ask me which came first, the American Revolution or the American Civil War?

[Justin_Bailey]

Originally Posted by jjimm

Me: Why do we have two eyes then?
Her: To help you see better!
Me: Close one eye and then try to pick up that pencil.

Maybe I just have supervision, but the world doesn't turn to 2D if I close one eye. I can even pick up pencils that are the table in front of me.

I've heard the 2D/3D thing a ton of times and the person/article explaining it always uses the "close one eye" example. But there has to be more to it because closing one eye doesn't hamper the vision in my remaining open eye.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Crafter_Man

As an adjunct professor, I teach a number of math courses at a local private college.

Most of the students do not know their times tables.

When I write (8)(4) = on the board, I am met with stares. They do not know (8)(4) = 32. They have never memorized their times tables.

I have to admit I would have been one of the ones looking blankly. I was unaware of this convention and wouldn't have know that (8)(4) was supposed to indicate the product of eight and four.

[Gymnopithys]

Originally Posted by chacoguy

A couple of years ago, I introduced a 60 year old man to Nachos. Yup, corn chips and melted cheese, dipped in salsa. He had never heard of them.

I probably ate corn chips and melted cheese before your were born, Chacoguy, but only last year did I learn they were called Nachos (I'm not presently living in the US).

[grude]

I had an older guy say he had a teenage son with valley fever, in a sly tone of voice.

I wondered if he meant his son was dating a valley girl(like you know whatever!) or what he meant.

Turns out there is a disease called valley fever, which his son had.

[Kamino Neko]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

I was unaware of this convention and wouldn't have know that (8)(4) was supposed to indicate the product of eight and four.

You may be more familiar with it in the more common forms like (1+x)(2-y), or 2(x+y). This is, quite literally, the first time I've ever seen it used with single numbers, rather than formulae - so I'd have been staring blankly, too...even once I figured out what was meant, I'd have kept it up for a minute as I tried to figure out why they'd used that notation for the problem.

[Do Not Taunt]

Originally Posted by Justin_Bailey

Maybe I just have supervision, but the world doesn't turn to 2D if I close one eye. I can even pick up pencils that are the table in front of me.

I've heard the 2D/3D thing a ton of times and the person/article explaining it always uses the "close one eye" example. But there has to be more to it because closing one eye doesn't hamper the vision in my remaining open eye.

Your brain is quite good at generating a 3d image from hints like shadows as well as its own memory of the scene from when your second eye was open. But more information, such as a second eye, generates a better model. For example, it's definitely easier to track objects in three dimensional space with two eyes. Try catching a batted baseball with an eyepatch over one eye as a test of this idea.

[brittekland]

A friend who is a VP of a large marketing company with double master's degree never heard of Dalai Lama... and her husband who's a head of a large management company and this other friend of ours who were having dinner with us didn't know what "queue" was. Go figure.

[panache45]

I've mentioned these on a previous thread.

I was in an elevator in a hotel in Niagara Falls. A couple got on, the doors started to close, then opened again. I saw that the man was pushing a button, and every time he pushed it the doors opened up again. His companion tried it, with the same result. Then I noticed that they were pushing the button for the floor we were on. I had to explain to them that they needed to tell the elevator where they were going, not where they were coming from. The woman commented that elevators shouldn't be so complicated.

And then there's my first-cousin-once-removed, who thinks all dogs are male and all cats are female. The dogs impregnate the cats, and the cats give birth do a mixed litter of puppies and kittens. This woman, by the way, is not five years old; she's in her 50s.

[Senegoid]

Originally Posted by panache45

And then there's my first-cousin-once-removed, who thinks all dogs are male and all cats are female. The dogs impregnate the cats, and the cats give birth do a mixed litter of puppies and kittens. This woman, by the way, is not five years old; she's in her 50s.

Ummm.... Your 50-ish first-cousin-once-removed might know the facts of life better than you think.

[Senegoid]

Originally Posted by Tengu

You may be more familiar with it in the more common forms like (1+x)(2-y), or 2(x+y). This is, quite literally, the first time I've ever seen it used with single numbers, rather than formulae - so I'd have been staring blankly, too...even once I figured out what was meant, I'd have kept it up for a minute as I tried to figure out why they'd used that notation for the problem.

When I learned algebra (1966 or so), we got this. The notation ( )( ) was shown, and a few examples of the (8)(4) sort were shown, but thereafter that usage was NEVER used again that I can remember. It was always like (1+x)(2-y), or 2(x+y) like Tengu says. But we did see some (8)(4) sort of examples at the beginning.

Then they bushwhack you with notations like f(x).

ETA: And then when you get into Calculus, they bushwhack you some more with notations like dy/dx

[Blackberry]

A girl about 18 years old in my teen parents childbirth class was pregnant with her second baby and didn't know what a C-section was.

A guy I was casually seeing who was in his early 30s asked me which ones were the Democrats and which ones were the Republicans. He knew who our president was, but I seriously had to tell him that Obama (and I and he and everyone else we might agree with) is a Democrat.

Another guy I was seeing (I need to raise my standards, yes) thought people had two sets of baby teeth before getting their adult teeth. He had to call his mom who was a dental assistant before he would believe that we just had one set of baby teeth.

Originally Posted by Shamozzle

My Mom felt that the power cord for her laptop should be more than sufficient to connect to the internet. The fact that she had to plug in the ethernet cable was quite ridiculous to her.

Oh yeah, my mom thinks the same thing. I've tried to explain it to her at least twice, and she still doesn't get it. She still calls to tell me her Internet isn't working, even though she plugged in her laptop's power cord. To be fair, as of a couple years ago, I think she does finally realize that you don't have to be online to play Windows solitaire.

[grude]

Originally Posted by Blackberry

Oh yeah, my mom thinks the same thing. I've tried to explain it to her at least twice, and she still doesn't get it. She still calls to tell me her Internet isn't working, even though she plugged in her laptop's power cord. To be fair, as of a couple years ago, I think she does finally realize that you don't have to be online to play Windows solitaire.

One of my mom's friends asked me how she could get on the internet without a modem or ISP, she also refused to purchase a wireless adapter to see if she could mooch off someone's open router. She after much back and forth concluded I was just incompetent at this computer stuff and she would ask around as she was not going to pay for modems or ISPs because she knows there is a way!

[Springtime for Spacers]

Originally Posted by Candyman74

Yup. He's the American Fred West, right?

I have vague knowledge of the murderer. Couldn't name his victims, though. Can't name Jack the Ripper's, either, and at least he was on the same continent as me!

Fred West? Close, but Manson had a coterie of mainly females carrying out murders. I can't name any of the other victims but Sharon Tate was famous in her own right, beng an actress and married to film director Roman Polanski.

[DianaG]

Originally Posted by Terr

In 1982, on a lark, I bet some friends of mine that we could ask 10 random people at Rogers Park Beach in Chicago if they knew who Archimedes was and not more than 2 would answer correctly. I won.

Duh, he's the owl in The Sword in the Stone.

An actual conversation that played out during a game of Trivial Pursuit:

"But snails and slugs are the same species!"
"No they're not."
"Of course they are!"
"No, they're the same class, not species. Think about it... not even all snails are the same species!"
"I HAVE A PhD!!!"
"In geology. Let's move on."

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Tengu

You may be more familiar with it in the more common forms like (1+x)(2-y), or 2(x+y). This is, quite literally, the first time I've ever seen it used with single numbers, rather than formulae - so I'd have been staring blankly, too...even once I figured out what was meant, I'd have kept it up for a minute as I tried to figure out why they'd used that notation for the problem.

That's true. I would have recognized it in that case.

[saje]

I was shocked to learn that my husband had only the vaguest idea of who Winnie The Pooh and Eeyore are.

[Yorikke]

Originally Posted by saje

I was shocked to learn that my husband had only the vaguest idea of who Winnie The Pooh and Eeyore are.

I only have the vaguest idea of who Winnie The Pooh and Eeyore are. Winnie is a bear, he likes "hunny," there's a kangaroo involved. Eeyore is an anteater or something. (Edit : maybe an Aardvark? I get them mixed up.) The human boy is Christopher Robin. Beyond that, I got nothin'. I presume they go on adventures?

Male, 38, raised in the USA.

Joe

[septimus]

I knew a "technical" guy who wrote date-arithmetic software but didn't know about the Gregorian calendar. To confirm this I asked "Was 1900 a leap year?" He answered "I don't know; is 1900 a multiple of 4?" My surprise that he wrote date-arithmetic software without knowing of the Gregorian reform changed to astonishment that he didn't know multiples of 100 were also multiples of 4.

My 3rd-grade teacher insisted that Greenland should be called a continent since it is much larger than Australia (as she demonstrated by pointing to the Mercator-projection map on her wall).

Originally Posted by panache45

And then there's my first-cousin-once-removed, who thinks all dogs are male and all cats are female. The dogs impregnate the cats, and the cats give birth do a mixed litter of puppies and kittens. This woman, by the way, is not five years old; she's in her 50s.

I nominate this one for Best of Thread.

[DianaG]

I concur with that assessment, although the OPs "why aren't these eggs hatching" example comes in a close second.

[elbows]

While traveling in SE Asia, with a high school teacher, who repeatedly asked me, in earnest, "Will we be taking a train or a bus to Indonesia?" I explained that it was an island nation and we would have to fly or take a boat.

By the end of the week I had answered this question, from the same woman, three times!

[Silver Fire]

Originally Posted by Ravenman

I didn't know birds could lay unfertilized eggs. I never thought about it.

... chickens?

Not that fertilized eggs are NEVER eaten (I know because I just got myself curious and googled a bit about intentionally eating fertilized eggs; the wiki on balut almost made me vomit), most of the eggs you buy in the store for your breakfast are unfertilized.

[jjimm]

Originally Posted by Justin_Bailey

Maybe I just have supervision, but the world doesn't turn to 2D if I close one eye. I can even pick up pencils that are the table in front of me.

I've heard the 2D/3D thing a ton of times and the person/article explaining it always uses the "close one eye" example. But there has to be more to it because closing one eye doesn't hamper the vision in my remaining open eye.

Is your name Gail?

In seriousness, the world does turn 2D when you close one eye.

However, you might be someone who doesn't normally experience stereoscopic vision, in which case you wouldn't notice the difference. Like I said, parallax helps to work out what's going on. If this is so, like trying to explain colour to a colourblind person, it it quite difficult, but I can assure you that there is a massive difference. Do you see the difference between 3D and 2D movies? I know there are people who don't.

Either that or like my ex friend, you're not perceiving consciously what you actually perceive unconsciously. Could you walk around with one eye covered all day long and function normally?

Further reading.

[Lynn Bodoni]

Originally Posted by BadAtSports

When I had gestational diabetes, my sister told me I could eat apples.

Me: "Actually, apples are loaded with sugar... I can't really eat any fruits."
Her: "Apples have sugar in them?"
Me: "Yeah, what did you think makes them sweet?"
Her: "I don't know, I just thought they were filled with vitamins..."

Diabetics CAN eat fruit, and sugar. An apple is a perfectly cromulent choice for a diabetic. It's got lots of fiber, which means that the sugar will be more slowly released into your blood stream. Diabetics are urged to include whole, fresh fruits into their diets, along with vegetables.

What we can't do is eat a lot of sugar all at once. For instance, it's one thing to eat half a banana (which is the serving size). It's quite another thing to eat the banana plus ice cream plus syrup plus whipped cream (banana split).

A lot of people think that having diabetes means NEVER eating any form of sugar or starch. This idea is quite outdated, from the days when diabetics had to test their sugar by dipping a test stick in their urine. Sugar doesn't spill into the urine until it's dangerously high, so naturally diabetics tried to keep their blood sugar as low as possible. With today's home blood testing kits, though, we can easily see if we've eaten a little too much sugar.

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by jjimm

Could you walk around with one eye covered all day long and function normally?

Yes. And when I'm working (I'm a photographer), I'm running around most of the time framing and composing an image with one eye closed. I don't find myself bumping into things and being otherwise confused.

Now, I don't disagree that "true" 3D isn't possible without binocularity, but your brain is pretty good at forming a three-dimensional picture of the world with a lot of other depth perception clues. Like, as you said, parallax, for example.

[sahirrnee]

People who asked me when my pony was going to grow up to be a horse.
A past boss who told me certain items were 40% off and to calculate the price I needed to multiply the price by .40 and subtract that from the price. When I suggested just multiplying by .60 to get the price she told me it doesn't work that way. She pulled out her calculator to show me I was wrong and several calculations later said well you do it your way then but I still think you're wrong.
The woman who worked at Vital Records who told my then bf that he couldn't get a copy of his birth certificate there because they didn't handle certificates for foreign countries. He was born in Hawaii.
People who can't tell even common dog breeds apart. They wouldn't know a German Shepherd from a Golden Retriever or a Beagle from a Pug.
Another ex-bf who had several young women convinced that not only did he serve in Viet Nam (he did at 18) but that he had also served in WWI and WWII. I asked what about Korea he said oh yeah I forgot I was there too.

[hajario]

Originally Posted by septimus

I knew a "technical" guy who wrote date-arithmetic software but didn't know about the Gregorian calendar. To confirm this I asked "Was 1900 a leap year?" He answered "I don't know; is 1900 a multiple of 4?" My surprise that he wrote date-arithmetic software without knowing of the Gregorian reform changed to astonishment that he didn't know multiples of 100 were also multiples of 4.

Actually, 1900 was not a leap year.

The rule is:

If the year is evenly divisible by four it is a leap year.

UNLESS it is divisible by 100 in which case it is not a leap year.

UNLESS it is divisible by 400 in which case it is a leap year.

[pulykamell]

As to the OP, I've mentioned this one in another thread, but during freshman new student week, we were walking around with some of our fellow students and discovered that one of the girls, who had something like a 1500 SAT (out of 1600 at the time, and pre-1994 rebalancing), thought the compass points were a relative concept. That is, she was confused as to how Lake Michigan was always to the east when you're in Chicago. "But isn't east always to your right?" she asked? We looked at her quizically, and after a few more questions, realized she thought north meant "in front," south meant "in back," etc.

[FrillyNettles]

Originally Posted by Lynn Bodoni

Diabetics CAN eat fruit, and sugar. An apple is a perfectly cromulent choice for a diabetic. It's got lots of fiber, which means that the sugar will be more slowly released into your blood stream.

Perhaps some diabetics can, but this diabetic cannot eat apples. One small apple sends my blood sugar sky high. I can, however, eat bananas and other fruits. But apples...nope.

[DrFidelius]

To answer the OP, no. I am never shocked at what some people don't know.
I have my own vast areas of ignorance (Asian history, most languages, art history, professional sports, current celebrities as examples just off the top of my head) that I am never surprised at finding a similar area of ignorance in someone else, even if that person is unaware of something I had understood to be trivially obvious or general knowledge.

[MacCat]

Originally Posted by sahirrnee

The woman who worked at Vital Records who told my then bf that he couldn't get a copy of his birth certificate there because they didn't handle certificates for foreign countries. He was born in Hawaii.

I knew he wasn't born in The US!

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by mnemosyne

A friend of mine - studying to be a teacher - thinks that Homo sapiens are extinct.

She's pretty smart and was making a very lame joke, but still...

Maybe she was whooshing you. Quote from Friends :

Joey: I have a question. If the homo sapiens were in fact homo sapiens is that why they're extinct.
Ross: Joey, homo sapiens are people.
Joey: Hey, I'm not judging.

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by wheresgeorge04

Eeyore is an anteater or something. (Edit : maybe an Aardvark? I get them mixed up.)

Donkey, hence the name. Or were you kidding?

[crookedteeth]

My boyfriend is awful with directions. Just awful. We live in North Carolina, and he travels a lot. I don't always keep up with where he's going anymore.
A while back I asked him where he was going (he was driving).
He said "Atlanta. No, wait, Richmond."
I said "Are you going to Georgia or Virginia?"
"I can't remember."
"Okay, are you traveling north or south?"
"Ummmm, I don't know. Let me check the GPS."
I've given up all hope. He's an otherwise intelligent person, just doesn't know how to navigate without GPS assistance.

A girl I worked with thought limes were lemons that weren't ripe yet. I tried not to laugh.

[Dr. Drake]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

Donkey, hence the name. Or were you kidding?

"Hence the name" only works for British people because of the R. Growing up, it never occurred to me that Eeyore was supposed to represent the donkey's sound (hee-haw).

[mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

Maybe she was whooshing you. Quote from Friends :

Joey: I have a question. If the homo sapiens were in fact homo sapiens is that why they're extinct.
Ross: Joey, homo sapiens are people.
Joey: Hey, I'm not judging.

Yep, I'm the idiot on this one - that was the joke she was making and I missed it entirely. There was no Friends context, in my defence - it kind of flowed into a separate conversation I was thinking of and made me go ! I know I've seen that episode, probably many times over the years, but I'm terrible with TV show quotes.

How about this, then - my sister, a veterinarian, was just telling us a story about a client who thought that his intact male cat couldn't possibly impregnate his intact female cat because the male wasn't spraying the house. Seems in his mind, no cat pee all over means no cat sex.

Originally Posted by crookedteeth

I've given up all hope. He's an otherwise intelligent person, just doesn't know how to navigate without GPS assistance..

My friend is like this - she can barely navigate around her own town without her GPS. Whenever she comes to Montreal to visit, her GPS sends her down one of the more frustrating routes in the city, because it's technically less mileage and she bitches and complains about it every time (driving in Montreal is so stupid, all those zigzags!).

I keep telling her that if she'd just follow the 20 and 720 (same road, really - you never notice the transition) until the end of the highway, then did five turns through 3 lights (three of which just get you around a park in front of the house, you can see the house the whole time) you can get to my house much more easily. She then tells me that she just follows her GPS, and isn't comfortable doing anything else.

[drastic_quench]

An old guy at the fish counter was blown away at the name and just the existence of Mahi Mahi. It's cool if you can't id the whole fish or haven't even heard of it, but you could have convinced this rube it was from the moon. This dead fish on ice was clearly the most exotic thing he'd encountered in 65 years of living.

[Yorikke]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

Donkey, hence the name. Or were you kidding?

No. What do you mean, "hence the name?"

Edit : Is that supposed to be the name for a donkey bleating?

Joe

[Yorikke]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drake

"Hence the name" only works for British people because of the R. Growing up, it never occurred to me that Eeyore was supposed to represent the donkey's sound (hee-haw).

Yes, this. Thanks.

Joe

[panache45]

Originally Posted by Shamozzle

My Mom felt that the power cord for her laptop should be more than sufficient to connect to the internet. The fact that she had to plug in the ethernet cable was quite ridiculous to her.

I gave up explaining to my mom that the computer monitor was just a monitor, and the "real computer" was that big thing under the table.

Of course this was the same mom who thought she needed to have the car inspected to renew her drivers license . . . and she needed to pass a vision test to get the registration renewed.

[panache45]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drake

"Hence the name" only works for British people because of the R. Growing up, it never occurred to me that Eeyore was supposed to represent the donkey's sound (hee-haw).

Even though we read all the Pooh books as kids (I was almost named Christopher Robin), I never understood Eeyore's name 'til I was an adult.

[Ambivalid]

Originally Posted by FrillyNettles

Perhaps some diabetics can, but this diabetic cannot eat apples. One small apple sends my blood sugar sky high. I can, however, eat bananas and other fruits. But apples...nope.

Why is this? Aren't bananas higher in sugar than apples?