I was riding a university shuttle in Houston on a very cold morning. I was the only passenger in the bus and so I started having a conversation with the driver. It almost never gets cold enough to snow in Houston and so I joked that they were expecting 3 inches of snow. I got a funny look and then a response of: “It only snows in the mountains and in the North”. After some more talk I figured out that the driver didn’t know that it only snows when its cold enough. She never was taught about the correlation between ice/snow and temperature. She just assumed (presumably since she was a child) that it snows in random places and that Houston simply wasn’t one of them.
I was having a conversation with an accountant where I work. This person is very well-educated (a 4-year college degree + CPA). We started talking about the planets and I mentioned that there were 9 of them. OK, so maybe she skipped school on the day that they taught the planets. But her question almost knocked me out of my chair. She asked: “OK, I know about the Sun and the Moon, but what are the other 7?” And she wasn’t joking.
Please share any similar experiences. I’ll do the same as I think of some others.
When I was young, my brother had his girlfriend (future wife) over for dinner with our family. We were talking about WW2, and I mentioned Adolph Hitler.
She said, “who?”
I, giving her the benefit of the doubt (and completely unwilling to believe she didn’t know who Hitler was,) repeated the name.
Blank look, and a shrug. “Never heard of him.”
All conversation stopped instantly, and she was left there in silence, wondering what all the fuss was. We told her, of course.
She was a college graduate (liberal arts) and she argued with me about whether or not the sun rotated around the Earth. She thought it did. She could not be convinced otherwise.
I was hanging out with a friend of mine in college and his girlfriend. My friend and I were trying to plan a trip to New York City, and when we invited her, she said, in all seriousness, “No, I hate southern California.” She was dumped shortly thereafter.
I mentioned to my roommate the other day that my sister was currently reading the Harry Potter books, and he responded, “Harry who?”
Ok, not as good as not knowing about the planets or snow, but still a sign of not paying attention to anything much at all.
Oh, and I remember a story I heard from my brother-in-law. Apparantly, a girl he once knew was driving past a field of cows and asked what those animals were. After a few brief moments of wondering how serious she was, someone told her they were cows. She replied, “They can’t be cows. They don’t have the black spots.”
She apparantly thought that all cows were white with black patches, like the boxes Gateway computers come in. She thought differently colored beasts were a completely different species.
My HS general science teacher didn’t know, didn’t understand, and would not believe that the moon rotates. We had to organize a little “walk around the teacher” demonstration to convince him. Note: Every child in the class knew this, but the science teacher did not.
This girl on my hall spent the week before the election wondering if she should vote for Buchanan or Nader. How out of it are you if that’s the decision you’re making?
I dated a woman and for we were watching a show set in the civil war days. She expressed surprise that Americans fought each other and asked ‘Who won?’
My brother once had a social studies teacher who did not know that Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States, insisted that “Bronx” was a slang term and the correct spelling was “Broncks,” and thought Bosnia was in Asia.
I also used to date a guy who believed that masturbation caused impotence – AND that women not only don’t masturbate, but are disgusted by the very idea.
I think that there is something to the “Bronx” thing. I think it was named for a family who spelled their name “Bronck.” I have read that, whether it’s true or not.
I wish she was kidding. I assure you she was not. Now, here’s the dilemma: she really is a very smart person. I’m serious. She has a wonderful sense of humor, she’s intelligent, and she is an accomplished musician. I’ll be damned if I can figure out how she grew up with a giant, ugly Hitler-sized hole in her knowledge of the world. Very disturbing.
You want ignorance? How about this: at a family gathering a few years ago, we were discussing the movie Forrest Gump. My cousin’s new wife says, “He did all those things and can you believe I never heard of him until the movie?!”
The Bronx was indeed named after the Bronck family; IIRC, the use of an ‘x’ as a shortened form of ‘cks’ was acceptable in Dutch, hence “The Bronx.” Somebody correct me if I’m mis-remembering…
Anyway, I once watched a video of old Beatles’ performances with my cousin, who asked, “OK, which one’s Ringo?”
Around the time that Paul Simon did his concert in Central Park, a classmate of mine wanted to know whether Paul still wore lots of make-up and wore those funky clothes. Turns out she was confusing Paul Simon with Gene Simmons.
I was once joking around with a co-worker about the very topic of this thread, and I said, “Can you believe that some people think that people existed at the same time as the dinosaurs, because ‘The Flintstones’ shows them together?” This college graduate looked at me in confusion and said, “You mean they didn’t?” (Note: she was not a fundamentalist.)
I was told by my advisor’s wife (a 4th grade teacher) that she nearly got into serious trouble during her tenure review because the class observer (her principal?) took issue with her teaching of plate tectonics in science class. Nearly all the kids had already heard about it, but he refused to believe that the theory is widely accepted in the scientific community.
I once heard of someone who was complaining of pain in the back of her mouth. Someone asked her which teeth were hurting and she said, “A big one in the back.”
The guy said, “Oh, a molar?”
She said, “A what?”
She had never heard the term molar. When told this was the name, her response was, “Well, I don’t know the technical name for it.” By the way, she was in her 20’s.
Anyway. I met someone who had never heard of the International House of Pancakes. Also in her 20’s.
I was in a college class a few weeks ago(U of Michigan) and a girl asked, “Does the 18th century mean the 1700’s or 1800’s?” When we explained it means the 1700’s, she said, “That’s so stupid. Why did they make it like that?” We tried to no avail to explain.
I met a girl who had never heard of Tiger Woods. This was a few days after he won the Masters Tournament and was one every paper and news show in the country.
I always respond this way to situations like this. I got it from Seinfeld. When they say, “I didn’t know that.” I respond, “I didn’t know it was possible to not know that.”
I’m willing to give Jerry Springer guests the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no friggin way that those street smart people aren’t plants. Oh, sure, some of them are probably real…but I just don’t buy how all those random people could possibly be that stupid about so many subjects. They miss every question and have no problems displaying the fact that they can’t even come close. Nuh uh, no way. Same with Jay Leno’s segment. I’m so tempted to test this theory myself by carrying a camera with me to the mall for a few interviews.
On the other hand, in high school, I did pass out two seperate “cultural literacy” quizes to 300 students in all 4 grades and 3 levels of English classes (remedial, regular, honors). The scores were astonishingly low. Tonight, I’ll go back and look up my articles to show everyone.
Mine are kind of crappy, I’m sure I can think of ignorance on my own part if I try hard enough…
But I won’t do me. My brother didn’t know that England and Great Britain are the same country. Or maybe it was the U.K. and England. (Alright, they’re NOT, I’m aware, but he had no idea the two names were related.) He had to find one of them on a map and only knew one of them. I’ll cut him some slack, he is only in seventh grade, but still, a bit alarming. Last year he didn’t know what AIDS was and I expressed a lot of incredulity at that.
My mom didn’t know “duck duck goose.” (no not the SD member, but the game.)
My cousin didn’t know Charlie Chaplin when we were playing 20 questions.
A few years ago I didn’t know Washington was an actual city, I thought it was just a bunch of political buildings, but that it wasn’t a “real” city, like New York or Paris. I’m older and wiser now.
