FTR guys, I know a lot about the origins of the Net and the Web both. Like I said, my examples were lame. I should have clarified that the person asking about what the Web was like in the 60’s wondered if it was in Black & White only, since so many television shows were. Or if it was more “groovy” back then…
A couple of months ago there was a story in Private Eye (UK satirical magazine) about a “tabloid” newspaper editor. Apparently he was listening intently to a sub-editor describing a story about male impotence and testicular cancer. Explanation finished, the (anonymous) editor stroked his chin, and said quizzically:
“So, are you saying that sperm comes from your balls?”
It sounds like he knew what it was, he just wasn’t caught up in your fancy-shmanzy science terms. (I’d be more worried if it had been the other way around)
You’re starting to freak me out, braniac! 
Marilyn Monroe: “Water polo? Isn’t that terribly dangerous?”
Tony Curtis: “I’ll say! I had two ponies drown under me.”
Lesson: If she looks like Marilyn, who freaking cares?
How did you break it to her? 
The first time my grandparents from Ecuador came to visit, my dad would always play this hocus-pocus routine with the garage door opener. They thought their son-in-law was the next Houdini. :rolleyes:
Sorry I don’t any examples quite as good as all the aforementioned ones. I do have a couple of teacher examples (who, by definition, should know better):
In 8th grade, a girl gave the full definition of tabernacle as “In ancient times” (in other words, she didn’t get past that first comma). I called her on it and the teacher didn’t understand what was wrong.
Senior high school English class, and I’ve written my Honors term paper on Faulkner. Quoting extensively from Sound and the Fury and Absalom! Absalom!, I get the paper back with literally hundreds of red marks everywhere. The teacher didn’t know that Faulkner’s style often involves a fast-&-loose approach to punctuation, capitals, etc. Now, I’ll admit I didn’t use [sic] (I’d have to use them everywhere), but this was the leading Honors English teacher in the district, and she had no clue.
By some fluke I ended up putting together and running a small LAN at the University of Waterloo back when folks weren’t too cetain what computers were all about.
By messing with the startup batch files and by simply sending remote sysop messages I convinced several masters of English students and a couple of masters of economic students that the lab was working on very primitive artificial intelligence. I even had a very religious student convinced for a couple of days that god was speaking to her through the computer, though unfortunately the fellow who was assisting me spilled the beans to her.
It worked out nicely in the end, though, for when word got out about the god scam, it was explained away as my work on artificial intelligence going arwy. I found it amazing that people allowed the discrediting of to support the supposed truth of the other, rather than recognize that it was an entire fraud from the get go.
A few:
My father: What is the Soup du Jour?
Waitress: I don’t know, I’ll check.
Waitress: (leaves, returns) It’s the Soup of the Day!
I was travelling to Atlanta while Atlanta was experiencing ice storms, and consequently blackouts in certain parts of town. My trip involved two airplanes, so after the first leg, I asked someone at the desk whether there was electricity in Atlanta. “Oh yes, Sir! It’s a modern city!”
I was talking to someone about I forget what, but it involved multiplying something by one hundred. I told her the answer, but she didn’t believe me. I insisted that multiplication by one hundred was a matter of adding two zeros. She finally verified this on a calculator.
I have a hard time getting excited about this one. I don’t think it’s shocking ignorance for people of one country to not be aware of all the linguistic variations of their language as spoken in another country.
For a genuinely shocking example of American ignorance of Canada, see my ex-boyfriend (who is otherwise an extremely intelligent and highly literate person - no, he really is). I can’t remember the exact context of the conversation, but apparently he’d assumed all his life that Toronto was some little podunk village and when I said “No, it’s a big city” he said, in genuine bewilderment, “But … it’s Canada!”
What makes this story even sadder is that he’d lived his entire life in upstate New York, just a couple hours from the border.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ArchiveGuy *
**
Braniac? Is that someone who consumes bran to the point of having unfeasibly large bowel movements? 
My father used to astound us kids when we were little by making birds poop on the windshield at will. It wasn’t until many many years later when I learned that the car in question had a floor mounted wiper-fluid dispenser button, and one of the wiper fluid jets was broken, resulting in a single squirt of fluid hitting the window, lol!
I just thought of my latest occurance of ignorance, which happened just last year. One of the high-school age students where I worked was mentioning that she was going to be studying forensics that year. I perked up and said “How exciting! But isn’t that a little gory for high-schoolers?” I had assumed she was talking about the type of forensics that involves dissecting cadavers to solve a crime; I’d never before heard it as a term for debate club! D’oh!
Order the ham and eggs for breakfast. Ask if the ham is kosher. I’ve done this a few times, and usually get a response like, “Um… it’s fresh.”
At the counter, ask if they accept Federal Reserve Notes. Half the time the clerk will say, “No.”
I was going somewhere with a friend of mine and when we got to my car I thought one of the tires looked a little low. I got my pressure guage out of the glove compartment to check it and my friend was astounded. She had no idea that you could check your tire pressure yourself. Although that’s not as bad as the woman I got a jumpstart from who didn’t know how to open the hood of her car. I had to explain both the release inside the car and the latch on the hood itself.
I impressed a group of friends in college by explaining that whipped cream was made by whipping cream.
Stopped at a McDonald’s on the way home from a trip to Toronto/Niagara with some friends. We were on the main road from Niagara, about 15 minutes over the border. Our wallets still had Canadian money in them which we were all shuffling through to find our US money. The girl at the counter says “What’s with all the Canadian money?” We explained that we had just been to Canada. Her response? “But people come in here all the time with Canadian money.” My friend suggested that she move a little further from the border if that bothered her. I don’t think she got it.
“That being said, of course people should know about Hitler and the nine planets…”
—What a great name for a rock band!
In a conversation I had cause to mention Margaret Thatcher.
Now, this was about, oh, 1995 – well after she had left office – and here in the U.S., so that might alow for leniency in judgment. Might.
Anyway, I mentioned Margaret Thatcher, and the girl (well, woman) with whom I spoke said, Who’s Margaret Thatcher? I said, Well, she’s probably the most famous British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill.
Yup, you guessed it. She had never heard of Winston Churchill!
The Prime Minister, I mean. She had heard of the “Winston Churchill” who was a dog in Pet Sematary.
And yes, she had seen the movie, not read the book.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I was the first to tell an SO hae was snipped as well. His reply? “Can’t be, I’m not Jewish.” I had to show him a picture and everything. What an epiphany for him.
He was 24 and had had almost 20 lovers by that time. :eek:
Any bets on when someone’s going to post, “I’m a reservations clerk for an airline, and someone once asked me if there’s electricity in Atlanta”?
These two really aren’t in the same league. If you asked ten people on the street, I would be amazed if more than three knew that Istanbul was once called Constantinople. In fact, I would be amazed if more than three could name the capital of Turkey (which is not Istanbul), or could tell you that Istanbul is in Turkey.
OTOH, I would expect at least eight out of ten to know the difference between Sweden and Switzerland.
Er…Church was a cat.
How 'bout if we ask the people in line outside a They Might Be Giants concert?
Can I be the one to quote the song, or should we wait for Particlewill to turn up?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
You’re playing it in your head people, sing it out loud or the song’s gonna be stuck in there all day.
BTW, Muffin, while I think that some of your examples are funny, I’m not sure if they qualify as things you’re surprised others don’t know. Basically, you’re taking people who have no reason to know the correct information and perpetuating and enhancing their ignorance. You are the cause of them not knowing, not a lack of education until now.
Wow…if this was the wild west, I’d have been shot by now I’m that slow on the trigger. I swear I didn’t see the five hundred TMBG posts before I did mine.