# Amazingly stupid things overheard
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 28, 2011, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599 "2011-12-28T04:33:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2011, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/101 "2011-12-29T22:39:34Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#):
>
> “When did the war of 1812 take place?”
>
> “…Is that a trick question?”
>
> I can’t really blame the response but the question was pretty dumb.
Isn’t the answer, “de jure, 1812-1814/de facto, 1812-1815” nonobvious?
---
### Author:  [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/102 "2011-12-29T22:49:39Z")
> [@spotthegerbil](#):
>
> I heard both of these at Edinburgh castle from tourists.
>
> “Isn’t it great that they built the castle so close to the shops…”
>
> (pointing north) “I didn’t know we were so close to France. Look, you can see the Eiffel Tower”
>
> [(scroll down) Craigkelly Transmitter, as built by Gustav Eiffel](http://www.aerialsandtv.com/craigkellytx.html)
>
> I will not mentin their nationality…
Just to be fair, Scottish occasionally get US geography a bit confused, too. At a conference I host in Denver, a visiting Scotsman asked me where he could catch a bus on Friday to Minneapolis and a return in time to catch his flight home (out of Denver) on Sunday. I explained that his best bet was to contact the airlines about changing his flights, but he insisted that was too expensive, and he just wanted a bus. When I told him this was not possible, he left in a huff to ask the hotel concierge.
Continuing the Anglo theme, while eating at a local (Denver area) British restaurant a large party was discussing the differences between the shepherd’s pie (mutton based) and cottage pie (beef based). One of the people asked what mutton was, and the answer provided was (mostly correct) that mutton was meat from a grown lamb. The “like sheep?” response was shot down, as the respondent explained that mutton and sheep are not the same thing. This may also have involved the idea that goats are the males, sheeps the females, and muttons and lambs are completely different animal from sheep or goats.
---
### Author:  [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/103 "2011-12-30T00:11:53Z")
> [@spotthegerbil](#):
>
> I will not mentin their nationality…
Oh, please do, then they can make fun of your spelling.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/104 "2011-12-30T00:38:44Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Apparently, there are people who don’t know that Austria and Australia are two separate countries. They book their flights to Vienna, check into their hotel, and ask the desk clerk how to get to the Outback.
We periodically have similarly confused people turn up in Victoria, B.C. (Canada.) I think it’d be a wheeze to keep 'em confused long enough to ferry over look for the [opera house](http://www.prism-magazine.org/feb11/pix/images/con-fea-01-image17.jpg).
---
### Author:  [@grayhairedmomma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grayhairedmomma)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/105 "2011-12-30T00:52:46Z")
An adult on the [Metro](http://www.wmata.com/rail/maps/map.cfm), crossing the Potomac River between VA and DC, “Look! [The ocean](http://iqdc.com/pics/Metro-Potomac-Frozen.JPG)!”
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### Author:  [@boozilu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boozilu)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/106 "2011-12-30T01:08:37Z")
My elderly aunt explained to me that Puerto Ricans were half black and half Mexican. That was the day I discovered how to just smile,nod, and change the topic.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/107 "2011-12-30T01:21:47Z")
> [@spotthegerbil](#):
>
> I will not mentin their nationality…
Lithuanians, no doubt.
---
### Author:  [@brittekland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brittekland)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/108 "2011-12-30T01:26:04Z")
> [@boozilu](#):
>
> That was the day I discovered how to just smile,nod, and change the topic.
It’s a virtue.
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### Author:  [@spotthegerbil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spotthegerbil)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/109 "2011-12-30T01:53:29Z")
> [@echoreply](#):
>
> Just to be fair, Scottish occasionally get US geography a bit confused, too. At a conference I host in Denver, a visiting Scotsman asked me where he could catch a bus on Friday to Minneapolis and a return in time to catch his flight home (out of Denver) on Sunday. I explained that his best bet was to contact the airlines about changing his flights, but he insisted that was too expensive, and he just wanted a bus. When I told him this was not possible, he left in a huff to ask the hotel concierge.
He couldn’t have been a real Scotsman. My wife will tell you how we never ask for directions… (Did you know we’re smaller by area than Kansas?)
> [@j666](#):
>
> Oh, please do, then they can make fun of your spelling.
By not mentioning their nationality, I’m allowing everyone the entertainment of making fun of my spelling. I’d hate to be too exclusive.
---
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/110 "2011-12-30T02:11:44Z")
The mother of a friend reminds me of Gracie Allen. Sometimes I think she is \*deliberately \*trying to say stupid things.
Once, while passing a sign advertising an airshow, she noted that it was raining out and wondered if they would hold the airshow inside.
I am assured by her sons that she isn’t acting.
---
### Author:  [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/111 "2011-12-30T02:23:26Z")
> [@grayhairedmomma](#):
>
> An adult on the [Metro](http://www.wmata.com/rail/maps/map.cfm), crossing the Potomac River between VA and DC, “Look! [The ocean](http://iqdc.com/pics/Metro-Potomac-Frozen.JPG)!”
This was probably the German from Mesa Verde. Or, it could have been **Chimera**.
There are intelligent sophisticated people who think the Great Lakes look like oceans, and they don’t have any salt water.
---
### Author:  [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/112 "2011-12-30T02:43:02Z")
> [@Chimera](#):
>
> German tourist at Mesa Verde: “Where are all the people?”
>
> She genuinely didn’t understand that we have vast open spaces in this country with very few people living in them.
When my brother was on a 2-week exchange program in Germany in high school, his host mother called him to the breakfast table and nervously delivered the grave news that “Your country is on fire!”
It turned out she’d seen a news report on that year’s wildfires in California, had no concept of how huge the United States is, and genuinely thought the entire country was on fire and my brother would have no home to go back to (we lived in Maryland). He calmly explained the situation to her, then went back to his room and laughed until he cried.
On the thread subject, I saw an interview with the actor Alex O’Loughlin in which he revealed that when he’d arrived in the US, he’d met someone who had asked where he was from and upon hearing he was Australian, said, “Oh, yeah, you guys ride to school in kangaroo pouches for elementary school, don’t you?” :smack:
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### Author:  [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/113 "2011-12-30T02:49:46Z")
> [@spotthegerbil](#):
>
> (pointing north) “I didn’t know we were so close to France. Look, you can see the Eiffel Tower”
>
> [(scroll down) Craigkelly Transmitter, as built by Gustav Eiffel](http://www.aerialsandtv.com/craigkellytx.html)
>
> I will not mentin their nationality…
In their defense, it was _an_ Eiffel tower…
---
### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/114 "2011-12-30T02:51:39Z")
It happens even within a single state: my wife’s parents were pretty nervous when Katrina hit just east of Houston; we were living in Austin, and called us a couple of times for reassurance that we weren’t even getting rained on. Not stupid, in fact eminently understandable.
Not so much so was a guy I once worked with: when I told him I had spent a lot of time in Taiwan, his demeanor suddenly become all “wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more,” and asked me a couple of greasy questions about the local night life while I was there. I was puzzled, and only later realized that he was thinking of _Thailand_ . . .
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/115 "2011-12-30T03:00:54Z")
I worked with a German gentleman who is also a Mormon.
His family landed in NYC and boarded a Greyhound bus for Salt Lake City.
It wasn’t until a hour or so later they asked the driver just how long the trip would take. They had been thinking it was maybe a 90 minute trip by bus.
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### Author:  [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/116 "2011-12-30T03:55:37Z")
I had a high school student who honestly thought black people had special skin that soaked up huge amounts of water. That was why they never went swimming.
I’d heard the black people don’t swim thing before, but the special skin was new to me.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/117 "2011-12-30T04:01:29Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> It happens even within a single state: my wife’s parents were pretty nervous when Katrina hit just east of Houston; we were living in Austin, and called us a couple of times for reassurance that we weren’t even getting rained on. Not stupid, in fact eminently understandable.
My Aunt by marriage, in Connecticut, called us in Arkansas when there was a tornado in Houston. New England states are kind of small, so I guess that is understandable. 🙂
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### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/118 "2011-12-30T04:23:53Z")
> [@bleach](#):
>
> **Crotalus** and **Filbert** , **TreacherousCretin** was referring to _“[Ask Dr. Science](http://drscience.com/wordpress/)”_, which is a parody of shows like _Bill Nye the Science Guy_ (although _Ask Dr. Science_ predated Bill Nye’s show). _Ask Dr. Science_ was produced by Duck’s Breath Mystery Theatre and was sort of an anti-Straight Dope.
>
> Example of _Ask Dr. Science_ audio: [Is there a factory in our heads that makes hair?](http://www.drscience.com/recordings/Hair%20Factory.mp3) **Warning: linked mp3**
>
> Notably, Dr. Science has a Master’s Degree… in Science!
And remember: He knows more than you do!
.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/119 "2011-12-30T04:32:59Z")
> [@Rick](#):
>
> I worked with a German gentleman who is also a Mormon.
> His family landed in NYC and boarded a Greyhound bus for Salt Lake City.
> It wasn’t until a hour or so later they asked the driver just how long the trip would take. They had been thinking it was maybe a 90 minute trip by bus.
What did the driver tell them? Even if they swapped drivers it would still be something like three days, wouldn’t it? For that matter, I’m surprised they could find a direct bus to Salt Lake City from New York.
That, and the Austria/Australia thing must be really awkward conversations. If I was in Vienna, and someone asked me for directions to the outback, I’m not exactly sure how I’d break it to them.
---
### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/120 "2011-12-30T04:44:46Z")
3 or 4 days IIRC.
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