# Aren't you shocked by what some people DON'T know? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 30, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431 "2000-11-30T20:34:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 26
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/501 "2003-01-23T11:18:04Z")
**The MacDairmuid** , it seems perfectly clear that **typhoon** is aware of both pronuciations – and meanings – of the word. He or she even gave the same link as yourself. BTW, does everyone here realise that they are addressing posts that are over two years old? The posters you quote might not be following this thread anymore. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Firebat023](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Firebat023](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Firebat023)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/502 "2003-01-23T12:01:35Z")
When I was a wee lad, I thought lesbians came from Lebanon. … _runs away_ ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/503 "2003-01-23T12:51:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sheerah \* > I was addressing an eighth grade newspaper class at a local elementary school and trying to describe headline point size. I explained the larger headlines traditionally belong at the top of the paper, but should remain under 50 point unless the event is of major, earth-shattering importance. I got looks of complete bafflement, so I tried to illustrate the point with a popular subtext reference. > > “Have you ever seen the picture of the man holding the newspaper where the top headline screamed ‘Dewey Beats Truman?’” Again more blank stares. > > So, I asked how many had ever seen ‘Cheers’; it’s been in syndication for umpteen years now, right? None of the students had seen the show. (I felt ancient.) > > Then I give them an abbreviated history lesson/ethical journalism speech on the embarrassing headline… Actually, the shot of the man holding up a newspaper with large-print headline during the _Cheers_ opening credits is not of Harry Truman, nor has it anything to do with Truman. The famous photograph of Truman would be an odd choice to include in the opening credits of a show set in a bar, anyway. The photograph is actually of a man holding up a large-print headline of “WE WIN”. It could refer to the end of WW2, but I think it actually means one of Boston’s sport teams had won a championship. I’m sure there’s a _Cheers_ fansite somewhere with the genuine history. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/504 "2003-01-23T13:10:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tsubaki \* > \*\*Before coming to Japan when I was 17, I thought women would still be wearing kimonos regularly, and there would still be some samurai. I was very disappointed to see a McDonalds a mere 100m away from my host family’s house. \*\* When I first came here, I believed all the stories about people working 20-hour days, seven days a week (granted, it’s now 10pm and I’m still at the office, but that’s because I have you guys to talk to). My first English school exploited my misconception to weasel a rather generous (to them) work contract. :mad: Some I’ve heard from my wife: She’d never heard of circumcision, despite having seen a fair number of penises (I guess the lights had always been out). She was rather freaked when I described the precedure and showed her my scar. What shocked me the most, though, was when she asked why Americans (she’s Japanese) always use the word ‘kamikaze’ to describe some last-ditch sacrificial effort. Me: Well, it comes from kamikaze pilots. Her: 😕 Me: You know, the pilots in WWII who crashed their planes into the American ships? Her: 😕 Me: The pilots sent on suicide missions because Japan had no other resources left? Her: That actually happened? :eek: Somehow, she’d never heard of this part of the war effort, or just thought it was something made up for dramatic effect in movies (the pilots knew they’d probably get shot down, but it wasn’t _really_ a suicide mission). Now, I’ve seen school textbooks here that start their WWII sections with the bombing of Hiroshima, but this just floored me. ---
**Author:** ![Spooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Spooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spooky)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/505 "2003-01-23T18:59:10Z")
It’s fun rereading this thread. Ok, true story: My husband’s Mom was, sadly, diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo a radical mastectomy. Her sister asked her, “It will grow back, right?” The ignorance about New Mexico is all too true. At the time we were moving here from back east we had someone tell us, “I would NEVER live outside the U.S.!” We were warned once or twice to not drink the water, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/506 "2003-01-23T21:00:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Actually, the shot of the man holding up a newspaper with large-print headline during the _Cheers_ opening credits is not of Harry Truman, nor has it anything to do with Truman. The famous photograph of Truman would be an odd choice to include in the opening credits of a show set in a bar, anyway. > > The photograph is actually of a man holding up a large-print headline of “WE WIN”. It could refer to the end of WW2, but I think it actually means one of Boston’s sport teams had won a championship. I’m sure there’s a _Cheers_ fansite somewhere with the genuine history. \*\* Um, I’m _quite_ sure the poster is well aware of the “We Win!” The post was about examples of font size in headlines, with two _separate_ examples being the “Dewey Beats Truman?” headline and the “We Win!” headline. Neither of which were familiar to the students. ---
**Author:** ![CasperQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@CasperQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CasperQ)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/507 "2003-01-23T22:27:30Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by BlackKnight \*\*\* 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.”_\* This is a true story. This girl is my sister in law, and she was in the car with me… I guess my brother didn’t marry her for her brains! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SatyrDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@SatyrDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SatyrDave)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/508 "2003-01-24T00:09:58Z")
I work in construction and we were building a River Walk along the bluff of the Mississippi River in Memphis, TN. I mentioned to a co-worker that the river level was really high as compared to a couple of days ago. He said "yeah. but how can it be? We haven’t had any rain. I said “well, the northern states have had a lot of rain latley and we are seeing the drainage from that.” After a few minutes pause he said “do you mean that the river goes past Memphis.” He was in his mid thirties. A girl I was dating some time back use to volunteer at a small private zoo. She was a college graduate. I went to work with her one day and as she started preparing the food for the animals I offered to help. She said I could chop a box of apples. I said “how do you want them chopped, quartered or what?” She said quartered would be fine. I chopped the box of apples and asked what else I could do. She looks at the apples and said “well they need to be chopped smaller than that.” I told her that she said to quarter them. She said “well yes, but smaller than that.”:smack::: ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/509 "2003-01-24T00:12:46Z")
In my math class, my teacher puts 2 riddles on the board each day. I am continually amazed by some of the ways my classmates react. In one, the question called for you to make the distinction between a female sheep and an ewe. The girl next to me said “only complete nerds would know what an ewe is.” Right. The answer to another was Pluto, the planet–a pun on something in the question, I guess. One student in the back asked “What’s Pluto?” To be fair, I didn’t catch his expression, so he could’ve been joking. Half the class didn’t know how much a gross was. (To be fair again I didn’t until about a year ago.) And let’s see…oh, a double ringer. In History my teacher had to EXPLAIN that if the President dies the Vice President assumes office. The next day my English teacher had to explain this as well! Argh! Oh, and one last one. I have a black t-shirt that says “New York” on it with a picture of the Empire State Building and nothing else underneath. Just two months ago, one of my teachers said “Oh, that’s a nice shirt. Is that the Twin Towers?” She was totally serious. My god. I second the confusion about Arizona. Some of my relatives live in California but visit about once a year. After a lot of visits they’re doing good about realizing the myth of AZ and the reality but they still get seriously perturbed at some things. My cousin refused to believe saguaro cacti were real until I took him about 100 yards from our door and showed him one. He also insisted the correct pronunciation of Gila monster is “g (as in good) eye-lay”, and that the Spanish form of Jesus is still gee-sus, not hey-zoos. ---
**Author:** ![abatha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f0a364/32.png) [@abatha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abatha)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/510 "2003-01-24T01:42:06Z")
my driver’s ed teacher is incredibly senile and just plain dumb. she told us that alaska is the only state in the us that you can’t drive to. apparently she’d never heard of hawaii…or CANADA. ---
**Author:** ![kris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@kris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kris)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/511 "2003-01-24T16:43:35Z")
In my History class a couple of years ago this girl turned to me and quite innocently asked… wait for it… ‘Who won World War Two?’ After staring at her open mouthed for a good couple of minutes I simply replied ‘Us’ before again staring at her again for a long time. I was in shock for along time to come. To conclude the story I don’t think she did that well in the end of year exam. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/512 "2003-01-24T18:38:57Z")
I had a contractor come in to refinish my floors in my house, a hefty sum of $2000. When he gave me the final bill, he calculated the sales tax off by a factor of 10. We have an 8.9% tax. He multiplied my bill by .89 to calculate the tax. When I questioned him on it, and then told him how it should be (multiplied by .089). He claimed that this could not possibly be true because you “can’t split a penny”. I guess having 3 digits after a decimal point was too much of a leap of math for him. I argued with him, bringing out calculators, writing it down, calculating it several different ways such as with fractions and sums and ratios, explaining the theory and concepts of what percentages are, and he just refused to believe that he was calculating the tax wrong. It took a call to his supervisor and a long phone chat to get him to agree to change the final bill. Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![Nuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea666f/32.png) [@Nuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nuke)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/513 "2003-01-24T19:41:41Z")
LOL at all the previous examples. My wife is Peruvian. Before Thanksgiving, someone always asks her, “So, do they celebrate Thanksgiving in Peru?” ---
**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/514 "2003-01-24T19:49:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by abatha \* > \*\*my driver’s ed teacher is incredibly senile and just plain dumb. she told us that alaska is the only state in the us that you can’t drive to. > > apparently she’d never heard of hawaii…or CANADA. \*\* Canada isn’t a state… I was arguing with someone on another message board who swore up and down the US had 52 states. When I told her the US only has 50 states, she told me, “52! You forgot Alaska and Hawaii!” ---
**Author:** ![Caricci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Caricci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caricci)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/515 "2003-01-24T19:53:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Boscibo \* > \*\*Canada isn’t a state… > > \*\* No, but you can drive through it to get to Alaska. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/516 "2003-01-24T19:54:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Boscibo \* > **Canada isn’t a state…** No, but you can drive to Alaska by driving across it. That was **abatha** ’s point. ---
**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/517 "2003-01-24T20:02:03Z")
Sorry, my mistake. In that context it sounded to me like Canada was another US state. ---
**Author:** ![Virgowitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/9fc348/32.png) [@Virgowitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Virgowitch)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/518 "2003-01-24T20:09:29Z")
Was Canada a Confederate state? ---
**Author:** ![RenMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@RenMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RenMan)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/519 "2003-06-02T21:11:51Z")
I once had to explain to my good friend that a cow and a bull were the female and male version of the same animal. He had thought they were entirely different species. It was wonderful to watch the incredible realization dawn on him. ---
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431/520 "2004-02-07T18:44:41Z")
I hope resurrecting this thread isn’t _too_ big a faux pas, but something happened to me last night that I just had to share and I think, although it’s been a while since I read all of the posts in this thread, that this just may beat all of them. I work at home taking order calls for a shop-at-home channel and last night, this woman called in to place an order. Now, of course, I can’t tell much just listening to someone speak on the phone, but she seemed like a fairly intelligent, articulate woman. She didn’t sound high or drunk or “out of it” in any way as a friend later suggested when I told him this story. So, I really don’t know what to make of this. Anyway, she was ordering some ring and she asked about the gem that was set in the ring. I was reading the description to her (because I know exactly jack shit about jewelry) and I told her that the stone was trillion cut. She asked what that meant, so I pulled up the ring’s photo on our website and told her that it was a stone cut in the shape of a triangle, from what I could see. Her response? “What’s a triangle?” The only possible explanation that I can think of is that it was really early in the morning and she may have been really tired and just had a massive brain fart. But still, how do you forget what a _triangle_ is? I explained it to her by telling her that a triangle had three sides and three corners. The thing is, I’m still not sure she understood because she still seemed confused somehow. But how else do you explain it? I also had a friend who thought spiders had six legs and flies had four legs and who’d never heard of Joan of Arc at the age of 22 or 23. But that doesn’t come close to “What’s a triangle?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arent-you-shocked-by-what-some-people-dont-know/43431.md?page=27)