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

[thelabdude]

Originally Posted by Alias

The ignorance at geography really blows my mind. I don't expect people to be able to point out every single small country in a region, but I just assume people have at least a rough idea of where things are! I knew someone in high school who thought Alaska was "somewhere out in the ocean."

I measured my globe. It is about the same 3'' from the Aleutian Islands to Hawaii as from Seattle to Anchorage. I must admit Alaska stretches a ways south of Anchorage.

[DianaG]

Or it would be if that was the form that most people associate with multiplication, which, as mentioned several times the the thread it's not. I'm pretty sure that if Crafter_Man had expressed it as "8x4=" he'd have gotten considerably fewer blank stares.

[Alias]

I get a lot of customers who own pets they can't identify. That drives me crazy.

"I have a lizard."
"What kind?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's brownish green."

Seriously? You can't be bothered to remember what type of pet you own?

[FrillyNettles]

Originally Posted by Ambivalid

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

Beats me why it is. I just know that, in my body, it is.

[Dendarii Dame]

I had a friend in college who thought velvet was a color, and another acquaintance who thought french fries were cooked by dropping them in boiling water.

I also knew a teacher who was the adviser of a high school Model United Nations club, which was going to be the Soviet Union (yes, this was back in the day) at a Model UN conference. Jokingly, I told her, "Be sure they don't bang their shoes on the table." She didn't have the faintest idea what I was talking about. (Nikita Khruschev, one time leader of the Soviet Union, was famous for banging his shoe on the table while he was lecturing the U.N.)

[Skara_Brae]

Originally Posted by panache45

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.

I never got it until just now.

I did have a friend at work once ask me (prefacing with "You should know this, you're really smart...) "What's further away from the earth, the sun or the moon?"

[Jasper Kent]

I work at an animal shelter and am constantly astounded by the public's ignorance. I don't expect everybody to know a lot about animals, but I used to expect pet owners to at least know some basic stuff.

(on the phone)
Me: "Is your dog altered?"
He: "Is it what?"
Me: "Is it spayed or neutered?"
He: "What's that?"
Me: "Is it fixed?"
He: "I don't know what you mean."
Me: "Can it make puppies?"
He: "I think it's a boy."

She: "When you neuter a male dog, do you remove his penis?"

She: "We have to return this cat we adopted; it doesn't get along with our other cat."
Me: "How much time did you give them?"
She: "Oh, at least 2 hours!"

One caller was upset that we don't handle wildlife problems. Her complaint? She was afraid to leave her house because in her front yard there were some birds in a tree.

[keeganst94]

I know a girl who thought that Africa was a country in South America, and that India was in Europe. In a grade eleven biology class. She also said that the Illuminati and the Jews control the world and that the government puts dangerous chemicals in airplane contrails.

[Dr. Drake]

Originally Posted by keeganst94

I know a girl who thought that Africa was a country in South America, and that India was in Europe. In a grade eleven biology class. She also said that the Illuminati and the Jews control the world and that the government puts dangerous chemicals in airplane contrails.

I've never understood the one about Jews controlling the world. If they do, they're demonstrating a remarkable lack of self-interest.

[DianaG]

That's what they WANT you to think.

[Lacunae Matata]

Ignorance of basic math just kills me. In my previous life, I trained (or tried to train) lots of people on how to work a hotel front desk. Some guests prefer to pay cash, which means that the clerk collects a payment equal to room rate x expected length of stay plus taxes. Many trainees got that bit just fine, but when I tried to show them rate + (rate)(sales tax@7%+lodging tax@6%) = (rate)(1.13)? Minds were blown. Seriously, I finally learned not to try to explain that one, just that it works. And let's not get started on the folks who thought I could just exempt them from either tax because they said "pretty please" or claimed that Competitor X never charged them. Honey, I've been through a state audit before, and watched the company CEO nearly stroke out when one of his properties owed back taxes plus $10,000 in fines due to improper documentation of exemptions. No single guest is worth that headache. Please go harass Competitor X!

I currently live in a college town, and often get questions at the grocery store (apparently I look helpful and competent,) on very, very basic domestic stuff - how to make spaghetti or hamburgers, the difference between bleach and detergent, whether one can substitute Dawn for Cascade in the dishwasher. These questions are usually from basic middle class American kids, not foreign students. In my opinion, if you've sent your kid off to university without teaching him to feed himself and do basic cleaning, you've failed at an important part of parenting!

[Eve]

Originally Posted by keeganst94

I know a girl who thought that Africa was a country in South America, and that India was in Europe. In a grade eleven biology class. She also said that the Illuminati and the Jews control the world and that the government puts dangerous chemicals in airplane contrails.

Oh! You just reminded me--a very Christian commuter friend, from Hong Kong, thinks that all Jews come from Israel! She asked me if I was going to visit my family in Israel over the holidays, and was shocked when I told her that most Jews she'll meet in the US hail from Eastern Europe and have never been anywhere near the Mideast.

[septimus]

Originally Posted by hajario

Actually, 1900 was not a leap year.

As an exercise reread my post and decide whether I thought 1900 was a leap year.

[Johnny L.A.]

Originally Posted by Lacunae Matata

Some guests prefer to pay cash, which means that the clerk collects a payment equal to room rate x expected length of stay plus taxes. Many trainees got that bit just fine, but when I tried to show them rate + (rate)(sales tax@7%+lodging tax@6%) = (rate)(1.13)? Minds were blown.

And then you check the rules and find out you can't charge more than $25 for a room, so you send the bell boy up with five dollars...

[Motorgirl]

Originally Posted by KellyCriterion

I've come to realise that people who possess the kind of intelligence I admire don't tend to expend any effort or energy "remembering" details of things that are painfully, painfully easy to reference check.

I've come to realize that people who possess the kind of intelligence I admire don't tend to expend any effort or energy "remembering" details of things - they just remember them. No effort involved, things just stick in their brains.

[septimus]

Originally Posted by septimus

As an exercise reread my post and decide whether I thought 1900 was a leap year.

After the incident with "technical" guy, for a few days I asked many of my acquaintances and none knew of the Gregorian reform. (I probably first learned of it at about age 9 when I browsed through all the appendices in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. )

[F. U. Shakespeare]

This isn't a specific example. But it really galls me when in a discussion, I cite a well-known event or figure from recent history, and the person responds by saying they don't know who/what I'm talking about, "because it was before my time". Gee, somebody should invent something, maybe call it, I dunno, a "history book", to deal with this perplexing problem

I once was discussing current events with an otherwise bright, politically engaged 20-something college grad who used this defense to explain why she didn't understand my reference to "Goldwater's presidential candidacy". I replied that I followed the campaign closely as a grizzled, politically-savvy five-year old.

[Malleus, Incus, Stapes!]

Originally Posted by keeganst94

She also said that the Illuminati and the Jews control the world and that the government puts dangerous chemicals in airplane contrails.

Actually, we had a falling-out with the Illuminati a few years back. Now it's mostly the Jews and the Methodists.

[kjckjc]

Originally Posted by thelabdude

I once had a man with a masters in chemical engineering ask why cars needed antifreeze.

My uncle has a masters in chemical engineering AND a VW bug. I doubt he could be could be convinced it "needs" antifreeze.

[Johnny L.A.]

Originally Posted by kjckjc

My uncle has a masters in chemical engineering AND a VW bug. I doubt he could be could be convinced it "needs" antifreeze.

They use this kind.

[brittekland]

Originally Posted by Lacunae Matata

Ignorance of basic math just kills me.

This site should help. It's free and a different approach to teaching. I think there should be more programs like this for every subject.

.

[Scarlett67]

Originally Posted by F. U. Shakespeare

This isn't a specific example. But it really galls me when in a discussion, I cite a well-known event or figure from recent history, and the person responds by saying they don't know who/what I'm talking about, "because it was before my time".

Or the flip side, when someone older than I am says I couldn't possibly be familiar with something because it was before my time. Yes, you're exactly right. Even though I'm well into adulthood, have a college degree, and edit textbooks for a living, I am completely unaware of anything that happened in the universe before 1967.

[mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by DianaG

Or it would be if that was the form that most people associate with multiplication, which, as mentioned several times the the thread it's not. I'm pretty sure that if Crafter_Man had expressed it as "8x4=" he'd have gotten considerably fewer blank stares.

The discussion on this topic bugs me.

If people recognize the form (1-y)(2+x)=? what happens when they are given values for x and y?

x=2
y=4

(1-4)(2+2)=?
(-3)(4)=?

And that's it? People can't get past that because they don't know what operations are left to do? How did they ever get through school? I'm pretty sure my teachers dropped the 8x4 notation when the variable x was introduced, so..grade 7 or 8 or so?

I'm not trying to be mean here, this just genuinely confuses me. I guess that's kind of the point of this thread - things that seem really simple and obvious that others apparently don't know.



She is far from stupid, but my sister has some bizarre gaps in her knowledge - geography being one of them, despite the fact that I know that she learned at least as much as I did. Years ago she asked me - before going on a Caribbean cruise - if Somalia was in the Caribbean. She was a little worried about pirates...

[Scarlett67]

Originally Posted by Ambivalid

They thought, assumed, that a paralyzed limb was more akin to a petrified limb

For some reason, when I was young I somehow picked up the idea that "paralyzed" did indeed mean "frozen in place." Perhaps it's the sound of the word, perhaps it's because it was defined to me as "can't move," I dunno.

I know better now, of course, but a shadow of that connotation still remains in my brain.

[Candyman74]

OK, I just did a random astronomy check with my wife. Hmmm. There are 9 planets because the sun is the 9th one. The closest star is a few thousand miles away.

[thelabdude]

Another from the pet world. ''Is my puppy really a male, it has nipples?''

How about the people that don't seem to know that everybody doesn't use Windows on their computer?

[Guinastasia]

I've heard of Sharon Tate, of course, but Dumont, no. Sorry, Eve.

MY obscure knowledge, if you'll recall, tends towards European royalty. So I tend to get annoyed about the differences between various kings, queens, tsars, emperors, kaisers, etc.

Originally Posted by Scarlett67

For some reason, when I was young I somehow picked up the idea that "paralyzed" did indeed mean "frozen in place." Perhaps it's the sound of the word, perhaps it's because it was defined to me as "can't move," I dunno.

I know better now, of course, but a shadow of that connotation still remains in my brain.

Yep. When I was a kid, I didn't get how everyone was able to have frozen their limbs in just the right position to use a wheelchair. Of course, I was eight. Adults have no excuse.


One of my professors in colleges was telling us about the time when he was teaching about the Reformation, and when he talked about Martin Luther, one girl asked, "How could he be alive then and still be alive later to free the slaves?"

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by jz78817

yeah, I was talking to the guy changing the oil in my car yesterday, and he had no idea what the Young's Modulus of naval brass was.

what a retard.

I lol'd.

[Tess]

In a college class we got on the subject of propaganda. One girl piped up, "Yeah! I've got a class with a Russian girl who insists the Russians won World War II!"
Everyone in the class replied, "They did."
She apparently thought we were just responding in surprise and started telling us how she kept trying to convince this misled classmate the Russians hadn't won.
Someone finally broke in and said, "The Russians did win!"
We had to explain to her the Russians fought against Germany.

[Kamino Neko]

Oh, one just occurred to me.

I went to a Catholic school. One day in class, one girl asked, apropos of nothing, 'Is the Pope Jewish?'

She'd mistaken the skull-cap he wears for a yarmulke.

[Koxinga]

Originally Posted by Tengu

I went to a Catholic school. One day in class, one girl asked, apropos of nothing, 'Is the Pope Jewish?'

Does a bear shit in the kitchen?

[drastic_quench]

Originally Posted by Tengu

Oh, one just occurred to me.

I went to a Catholic school. One day in class, one girl asked, apropos of nothing, 'Is the Pope Jewish?'

She'd mistaken the skull-cap he wears for a yarmulke.

Originally Posted by Koxinga

Does a bear shit in the kitchen?

Yeah, I'm working that into a conversation this week.

"You think our boss will know how to fix this?"

"Is the Pope Jewish?"

[sahirrnee]

I had a friend who would eat only canned fruit and vegetables. He refused to eat any fresh produce because it grew out of the ground and it was dirty
and bugs had crawled on it. I asked him where he thought canned fruits and veggies come from and he said a factory. I asked where he thought the factories got them and he said they manufactured them.

[Mijin]

Group ignorance:

A couple days ago I was having lunch with 4 guys at work.

We were talking about WWII, and I happened to mention about the two atom bombs dropped on Japan.
Everyone else at the table agreed that there had only been one bomb dropped and I must be thinking of one of the tests they did on an atoll or something for the second one.

And of course I got very weird looks when I mentioned little boy and fat man...

[chizzuk]

I had some roommates in college with odd gaps in their functional knowledge. Roommate #1, otherwise very smart and accomplished, had never baked before and did not know about using oven mitts. He learned fast, I'll tell you.

Roommate #2 didn't know how to use a mop. I could see being confused by an unfamiliar vacuum cleaner or a weird washing machine, but a mop? Really? She also didn't know how to use a toilet plunger.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by hajario

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.

It gets more complicated that that. Years divisible by 4000 are not leap years. But this rule hasn't been universally adopted. Some places have just ignored the issue and figure they'll straighten it out sometime before the year 4000. Other places have adopted an alternate rule that says if you divide the year by 900 and the remainder is 200 or 600, then it's a leap year. Complicated but it actually works better over the really long run (this rule will keep your calender accurate for tens of thousands of years).

So there could be a problem if we don't come up with an agreement in the next 788 years. According to one system, 2800 should be a leap year. According to the other system it isn't.

[Lynn Bodoni]

So there could be a problem if we don't come up with an agreement in the next 788 years. According to one system, 2800 should be a leap year. According to the other system it isn't.

I figure by then we'll be using some other system of timekeeping. In the meantime, I'm not going to lie awake at night and worry about it. I have so many other things to worry about.

[D_Odds]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Group ignorance:

A couple days ago I was having lunch with 4 guys at work.

We were talking about WWII, and I happened to mention about the two atom bombs dropped on Japan.
Everyone else at the table agreed that there had only been one bomb dropped and I must be thinking of one of the tests they did on an atoll or something for the second one.

And of course I got very weird looks when I mentioned little boy and fat man...

These conversations are why I love the internet, wikipedia, and smart phones. 25 years ago 4 people would walk away thinking you are the stupid one, and short of a trip to the library or bringing in a copy of an encyclopedia the next day, there was little you could do. Now, I just press a button, say "How many atomic bombs did the US drop on Japan in World War 2?" and the answer is right there.

[even sven]

It's kind of cheating, but I came away with some true gems from Cameroon. People had a decent excuse for not being up on things (but then again, we aren't talking about some kind of lost tribe) but it's just a mind trip to work with such a different base of knowledge where your basic assumptions don't really work in the same way.

I've been asked, in all seriousness, about the precise location of Canada. All the asker knew was that it was in Northern Africa somewhere, probably near Egypt. The assumption was that you could probably take a bus to that place where all the white people come from. I've also been told that the United States is a very nice city in Paris.

A friend had a student named "Adolph Hitler." People didn't have a lot of fondness for the French, and they knew that Hitler killed French people, so he must have been an okay guy. I was constantly having to convince my students not to draw swastikas on their notebooks.

A high school student asked my friend that if he went to US, at what point would he turn white, and wanted to know how that whole process worked. He knows it worked for Michael Jackson, but why didn't 50 Cent turn white when he moved to America?

Many, many people expressed that I must be brave to live in the US, what with all the gang wars and terrorism. They said they were glad they lived in Africa where they don't have to deal with all that violence. Also, there is a widespread belief that the US has a huge vampire problem, and again people are pretty thankful that they don't have to worry about vampires in Africa.

Once I was called in to proctor and exam on a 120 degree day. It was about as hot as it ever gets, and I was sweating buckets and fanning myself furiously. The teacher I was working with was utterly fascinated. He then asked me "Can you feel the heat, too?" It turns out he thought that white people just didn't experience heat in the same way, and were relativel indifferent to the extremely hot weather.

Originally Posted by jjimm

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

It's complicated. Oliver Sachs has a lovely essay on stereoscopic vision in The Mind's Eye. Basically there is a lot of variation on how people use stereoscopic vision. Some people live in a richly stereoscopic world, and being one-eyed fundamentally changes the way they experience everything. Others- even people with two perfectly healthy eyes- never use it much and rely on other cues to judge depth. I'm among the latter-I have a dominent eye, and closing the other eye does absolutely nothing to change my vision.

[Malleus, Incus, Stapes!]

Originally Posted by Tengu

I went to a Catholic school. One day in class, one girl asked, apropos of nothing, 'Is the Pope Jewish?'

She'd mistaken the skull-cap he wears for a yarmulke.

I think that's the puchline of an Israeli joke.

[ZenBeam]

Originally Posted by septimus

After the incident with "technical" guy, for a few days I asked many of my acquaintances and none knew of the Gregorian reform.

Did you ask them if they'd heard of "the Gregorian reform", or ask them if they knew how to tell if a year is a leap year?

[Shagnasty]

Originally Posted by even sven

It's kind of cheating, but I came away with some true gems from Cameroon. People had a decent excuse for not being up on things (but then again, we aren't talking about some kind of lost tribe) but it's just a mind trip to work with such a different base of knowledge where your basic assumptions don't really work in the same way.

I've been asked, in all seriousness, about the precise location of Canada. All the asker knew was that it was in Northern Africa somewhere, probably near Egypt. The assumption was that you could probably take a bus to that place where all the white people come from. I've also been told that the United States is a very nice city in Paris.

A friend had a student named "Adolph Hitler." People didn't have a lot of fondness for the French, and they knew that Hitler killed French people, so he must have been an okay guy. I was constantly having to convince my students not to draw swastikas on their notebooks.

A high school student asked my friend that if he went to US, at what point would he turn white, and wanted to know how that whole process worked. He knows it worked for Michael Jackson, but why didn't 50 Cent turn white when he moved to America?

Many, many people expressed that I must be brave to live in the US, what with all the gang wars and terrorism. They said they were glad they lived in Africa where they don't have to deal with all that violence. Also, there is a widespread belief that the US has a huge vampire problem, and again people are pretty thankful that they don't have to worry about vampires in Africa.

Once I was called in to proctor and exam on a 120 degree day. It was about as hot as it ever gets, and I was sweating buckets and fanning myself furiously. The teacher I was working with was utterly fascinated. He then asked me "Can you feel the heat, too?" It turns out he thought that white people just didn't experience heat in the same way, and were relativel indifferent to the extremely hot weather.



It's complicated. Oliver Sachs has a lovely essay on stereoscopic vision in The Mind's Eye. Basically there is a lot of variation on how people use stereoscopic vision. Some people live in a richly stereoscopic world, and being one-eyed fundamentally changes the way they experience everything. Others- even people with two perfectly healthy eyes- never use it much and rely on other cues to judge depth. I'm among the latter-I have a dominent eye, and closing the other eye does absolutely nothing to change my vision.

Good post even sven. I an reminded about my former SIL who had to help orchestrate a jail-break for a Mandril under her care (the largest species of monkey) out of a Nigerian jail. The locals swore it was a local murderer who was trying to avoid capture by using ju-ju to turn himself into a monkey. She didn't dispute that point but promised that he would be dealt with much more harshly once he got back to their system and it worked. Africa has some crazy shit but it depends on the place in question.

I am not following the 2-D versus 3-D eye examples either. I like having two eyes but I am hardly disabled by having one covered. I can do anything normal with just one with little change and I am pretty sure I can see in 3-D in regular life just fine with one.

[Koxinga]

I've had more than one Asian immigrant or student visa holder confidently inform me that the US has 52 states. When I said there's only 50, they chuckled at my ignorance.

[septimus]

Originally Posted by ZenBeam

Did you ask them if they'd heard of "the Gregorian reform", or ask them if they knew how to tell if a year is a leap year?

I think I asked something like "1900 is a multiple of 4; was it a leap year?" and did a follow-up when they answered "Yes." None of the people I asked was aware of exceptions to the multiple-of-4 leap year rule. ("Gregorian reform" was just shorthand for the post, though once again I'm reminded how ambiguous my "perfectly clear" writing often ends up. )

This astonished me, but then I'd read half of Asimov's first 99 books and, it seemed, half of them mention the leap year rule.

The original "technical" guy seemed to think the leapness of 1900 was left to individual opinion. I said "Look. Suppose someone went to sleep on Feb. 28, 1900 and woke up the next morning to buy newspapers. Do you think some of the newspapers had 'Mar 1' and some Feb. 29'?" He still wasn't convinced.

[eldowan]

One day I went to eat at a seafood place by the mall, in TX. On the menu was a dish: fish served on a cedar plank.

Now, I've known cedar since childhood, and to be fair, the waitress was the stereotypical blond ditz, so i asked her what kind of wood is the cedar plank made from?

She responds "I don't know, let me ask the chef."

I smile and nod.

She returns from the kitchen and says "He says its on cedar wood."

So, after eating, we go to the mall, and i decode to stop random people and ask them the question. I was in disbelief that people were ignorant of what cedar was.

I posed the question similar to this:
if you were being served fish presented on a cedar plank, of what type of wood would the plank be made?

Of 3 people I stopped, only two knew what cedar was.

[Terr]

Originally Posted by eldowan

One day I went to eat at a seafood place by the mall, in TX. On the menu was a dish: fish served on a cedar plank.

Now, I've known cedar since childhood, and to be fair, the waitress was the stereotypical blond ditz, so i asked her what kind of wood is the cedar plank made from?

She responds "I don't know, let me ask the chef."

I smile and nod.

She returns from the kitchen and says "He says its on cedar wood."

So, after eating, we go to the mall, and i decode to stop random people and ask them the question. I was in disbelief that people were ignorant of what cedar was.

I posed the question similar to this:
if you were being served fish presented on a cedar plank, of what type of wood would the plank be made?

Of 3 people I stopped, only two knew what cedar was.

I think I am missing something. Cedar? In Texas? Where cedar trees grow wild all over the place?

[Lumpy]

Originally Posted by sahirrnee

I had a friend who would eat only canned fruit and vegetables. He refused to eat any fresh produce because it grew out of the ground and it was dirty
and bugs had crawled on it. I asked him where he thought canned fruits and veggies come from and he said a factory. I asked where he thought the factories got them and he said they manufactured them.

I'm reminded of the Warner cartoon with the two chipmunks who found themselves in a canning factory. It showed where canned mushrooms came from: the mushrooms were scraped off the steaks into the cans.

I have to admit some ignorance here. I once thought that truffles the chocolate confection were so named because they contained truffles the extremely expensive edible fungus.

[bouv]

Originally Posted by even sven

Also, there is a widespread belief that the US has a huge vampire problem, and again people are pretty thankful that they don't have to worry about vampires in Africa.

I don't know about you, but I consider Twilight to be a very serious problem.

[Northern Piper]

Originally Posted by panache45

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.

Weird. Just the reverse for me - I never understood why the donkey on the opening credits of Hee Haw was laughing. Eeyore made perfect sense.

[LavenderBlue]

My mom keeps writing me about her friend who is taking a sabbatico from his job.