# Baffling gaps in knowledge **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 22, 2006, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423 "2006-10-22T06:43:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/41 "2006-10-23T04:22:07Z")
\*Beekman’s World \*was the source of one of my favorite quotes: “If science has taught us anything, Lester, it’s that it is impossible to humiliate a man who is _already_ in a rat suit.” ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/42 "2006-10-23T05:23:05Z")
[QUOTE=Frank] This is not the Pit; let’s not have Pit attitudes. **Lust4Life** , your post verges on unacceptable as well. Your point would have been just as clear without the attitude. [/QUOTE] My apologies, to you and to **Lust4Life**. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/43 "2006-10-23T05:26:05Z")
When I was in 7th grade, two of the girls in my class had an argument over whether the Eiffel Tower was in Paris or in France. I would definitely call that a “baffling gap in knowledge.” Although to be fair, both of them were right, I suppose. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/44 "2006-10-23T05:58:49Z")
A coworker of mine once asked me which came first; the American Revolution or the American Civil War? Which is not just an indication of his lack of knowledge on these two particular subjects but a sign of a much deeper lack of awareness of history in general. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/45 "2006-10-23T06:21:15Z")
You know Tom, now that I think about it some more, I have had very few flats since the advent of the better tires… [One we had was a bit rough.](http://members.aol.com/gusnspot/8sw.index.html) Had some fun with airplane flats over the years. he he he I was amazed when I talked to people, old people, in London and New York that had never driven, had never been out of their neighborhood their entire lives. It just blew me away. We always had fun with the New York folks who worked for American Airlines who got transferred to Tulsa. Wound them up tight we did. They would be so relived when they found out that they did not have to live in a teepee and there were TV and phones. This was in the 70’s. I don’t think there are many like that left but you never know. ---
**Author:** ![Manatee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/46 "2006-10-23T07:06:24Z")
[QUOTE=Caridwen] Two good friends of mine from school both told me they never read books. :eek: [/QUOTE] Better yet, I get students who tell me this all the time, often on the very first day of class.. Good move, guys: announce to the teacher “Hey, I’m an idiot.” ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/47 "2006-10-23T08:17:54Z")
[QUOTE=Ms. Meta] She said, “Canada . . . didn’t we buy that?” [/QUOTE] According to John Adams, had we declared independence in December of 1775, we could have [taken Canada](http://www.masshist.org/DIGITALADAMS/AEA/cfm/doc.cfm?id=L17760703jasecond). > [@](#): > > Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects… We should have mastered Quebec and been in Possession of Canada … You will perhaps wonder, how such a Declaration would have influenced our Affairs, in Canada, but if I could write with Freedom I could easily convince you, that it would, and explain to you the manner how. I somehow doubt that that’s what she meant, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/48 "2006-10-23T09:40:17Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Actually, I would say that the OP’s acquaintance’s hiring by Google would make his odd patch of ignorance _more_ explainable. The stereotypical "geek’ is often extremely tightly focused on learning more and more about less and less. [/QUOTE] This is a good description of a former boss of mine. She was chief cataloguer at a one of the subject-specific libraries at Harvard. She knew the LoC category rules (which fill several thick volumes and are revised regularly) like the back of her hand, and knew that library’s particular cataloguing system (it predated the LoC system, and quite possibly the LoC and the C itself) even better. She was also very into particular groups, and could tell you every possible detail about Pearl Jam and Guns & Roses. However, she didn’t know the U.S. president’s first name, and couldn’t name the vice president. Personally, I go for what I call ‘Jeopardy knowledge’: Know enough about any subject to be able to answer a Jeopardy! question on it, whether it interests me or not (I don’t get being proud of not knowing something). It gives people the impression that I’m a lot smarter than I really am, and makes it easy to track down additional information if needed. This is much more useful for my work than being an absolute expert in one subject. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/49 "2006-10-23T13:34:59Z")
[QUOTE=friedo] Hey, now. Just a few months ago I moved from Queens _all the way to Brooklyn!_ [/QUOTE] Oh my GAWD! And your parents haven’t disowned you? When I was moving from Navarra (a part of Spain which is claimed by the Basque independentists) to Miami, people would tell me “ohmygod, you’re moving to AMERICA? They have drive-by shootings there!” Well, yeah, but I’m reasonably sure that they don’t involve the director of a daily newspaper at 1pm… (42 bullets to/through the gut and he survived and went back to work asap, yay our health services and his genetics) We all have holes in our knowledge, as well as lapses of reason. So long as the hole isn’t the size of a galaxo, or the lapse lasts all that person’s life, it’s ok. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_chao_goes_mu/32/3191_2.png) [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/50 "2006-10-23T14:26:37Z")
[QUOTE=Caridwen] High horse? Neither person is exactly obscure. Rush Limbaugh has about 13 million listeners a week and Gorbachev opened the Soviet Union and was Time Man of the Year. It does seem a bit odd not to know at least one of them. It’s not like the question was what was the dark haired girls name on Three’s Company. [/QUOTE] You mean Janet? Played by Joyce DeWitt? 😃 I have friends who are highly intelligent, ie, Masters and Phd’s. I can whip their butts in trivia games but that’s not because they are idiots, it’s because I am a trivia buff and have some odd ability to retain massive quantities of useless information. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/51 "2006-10-23T14:43:11Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet] One day a woman in my office, another coworker and I were discussing Seattle and Washington state. The other coworker mentioned a friend who collected rocks from Mount St. Helens. The first coworker says “Isn’t that dangerous? Aren’t lava rocks _radioactive_?” :dubious: [/QUOTE] As a HS science teacher, I’ve basically given up that people have a decent grasp of even a HS science course. What I have to remind myself is that people are interested in different things, and they haven’t been thinking about these things. I couldn’t pass a HS biology final without taking the course again, because I’ve been busy thinking about how to teach chemistry. OTOH, I have a reputation for looking shocked when people don’t know things. I’ve even gotten yelled at for making people feel dumb. I’ve given up the idea that I have any idea what common knowledge is. My parents wouldn’t know of U2 except that I listen to them and Bono gets on the cover of Newsweek. They wouldn’t have a clue. I remember my dad looking surprised years ago when I told him that the punkers and the heavy metal kids didn’t really get along. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/52 "2006-10-23T14:58:07Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] A coworker of mine once asked me which came first; the American Revolution or the American Civil War? Which is not just an indication of his lack of knowledge on these two particular subjects but a sign of a much deeper lack of awareness of history in general. [/QUOTE] Those idiots. [An American Revolution](http://www.chevrolet.com/) clearly followed the American Civil War by about 140 years. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/53 "2006-10-23T15:22:23Z")
I’ve got a very sweet, fairly intelligent friend who was the unfortunate victim of a terrible mother. We’re talking left the house for weeks at a time leaving her 4 year old home alone bad mothering. She (my friend) didn’t go to school regularly, was living on her own at 11 and finally emancipated at 14. She is one of those people who is just incredibly thirsty for knowledge, and she learned quite a bit about a lot of things, but, as she says, “I went to college, but missed elementary school!” (And junior high, and high school.) This has left some bizzaro-world gaps in her education, as you might imagine. She doesn’t (well, didn’t, until yesterday) know what a slug is. I described it as “a snail without a shell” and the closest she could visualize it was a roly-poly. While she makes an excellent Italian red sauce, she didn’t know that onions are a staple of most people’s sauce. She also thought raw onions are dangerous, because he mother in one semi-lucid moment told her they’d make her cry if she cut one. She was baffled by raw onions on top of hot dogs because she thought they’d make us sick (and this was recently, as a 32 year old, not as a child.) She didn’t know how to take a temperature with an oral thermometer. Again, as an adult, not a child. There are words she doesn’t know that surprise me: exhilarate, penalty, splendor, clarify. I’ve gotten used to restating things I say to her several times, because sometimes the vocabulary is unfamiliar. I really adore her, and I’m getting better at anticipating her gaps and gracefully filling them in (and sort of translating when other people are talking over her head), but it makes me incredibly angry and sad that her stupid bitch of a drunk mother couldn’t be bothered to ensure she got at least a minimal eduation. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/54 "2006-10-23T15:22:29Z")
[QUOTE=The Chao Goes Mu] You mean Janet? Played by Joyce DeWitt? 😃 [/QUOTE] Janet Wood, who worked in the flower shop. And always wore stockings, even under her night clothes. And Joyce DeWitt often shows up as a producer on current TV shows. ---
**Author:** ![Subway\_Prophet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Subway\_Prophet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subway_Prophet)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/55 "2006-10-23T16:20:27Z")
[QUOTE=Lust4Life] Ar well there ya go see?these city slickers think they know it all don` ay?But they don` kno`nuffing`bout the people in your village do they?O`l […] [/QUOTE] 😕 Just out of curiousity ,what`s with the weird punctuation ?I might understand using the backtick`s ,but the space before commas ,stops ,and question marks ?Where is this practice common ? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/56 "2006-10-23T18:28:04Z")
Here’s an example of a less-than-baffling gap: one created by deliberate cover-up. My family hosted a few German exchange students. One in particular got along very well with everyone and returned to the U.S. several times. He was a seminary student, and is now a Lutheran Pastor and a very kindly fellow. He’s still in intermittent contact (used to be letters, now it’s the occasional e-mail) with my family some 20 years later. His first trip over, he traveled extensively in America. As a European, he was well-educated even before college; as a German, that education had particular gaps. He marveled that one could simply cross a state border within the U.S. on one’s own, without identification papers. Of course, some of our states are the size of European countries. But the most interesting gap in his knowledge was revealed when he commented on our slums. “You Americans have so much – how come you let your cities get so old and run-down?” “What do you mean?” “Your inner cities are old and dirty. In Hamburg, where I come from, **everything is new.** There’s not a building older than 40 years.” He beamed with pride. The implication was that German industriousness had replaced all the older buildings. He asked that question before the Internet was around, so I had to explain; I couldn’t just [do this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II) or follow up with [this.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_plan) The following conversation was very educational for us both. ☹ Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/57 "2006-10-23T18:45:07Z")
[QUOTE=Sailboat] But the most interesting gap in his knowledge was revealed when he commented on our slums. “You Americans have so much – how come you let your cities get so old and run-down?” “What do you mean?” “Your inner cities are old and dirty. In Hamburg, where I come from, **everything is new.** There’s not a building older than 40 years.” He beamed with pride. The implication was that German industriousness had replaced all the older buildings. He asked that question before the Internet was around, so I had to explain; I couldn’t just [do this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II) or follow up with [this.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_plan) The following conversation was very educational for us both. ☹ Sailboat [/QUOTE] Interesting. Though a more cynical answer would be that Americans _have_ let our cities get old and run-down, because most Americans simply don’t care about the cities: most people with the wealth or power to do so have abandoned the cities. If you want to show him where we’ve poured our wealth, take him to the suburbs. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/58 "2006-10-23T20:41:58Z")
Yeah, I always amaze my in-laws with my ability to answer “Jeopardy” questions, but what they don’t realize is that many Jeopardy questions have an obvious answer if you have only the most cursory knowledge of the subject. If you’re asked a question about women scientists, and you’ve only heard of one woman scientist in your life, 90% of the time you’re safe answering “Who is Marie Curie?” And most Jeopardy questions give you two hints, “This capitol of California is the site of some obscure thing.” “What is Sacramento?” You didn’t need to know anything at all about the obscure thing, just the capitol of California. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/59 "2006-10-23T20:59:24Z")
[QUOTE=Asimovian] [Futurama] Leela: “I’m worried about him, he didn’t come back with the group.” Fry: “He didn’t?” Leela: “No, and with wind chill, it’s twenty degrees below absolute zero. I better go find him.” [/Futurama] [/QUOTE] I think most people didn’t catch that. I spewed coffee all over my breakfast when I heard the line. Great writing! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423/60 "2006-10-23T21:01:55Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Yeah, I always amaze my in-laws with my ability to answer “Jeopardy” questions, but what they don’t realize is that many Jeopardy questions have an obvious answer if you have only the most cursory knowledge of the subject. If you’re asked a question about women scientists, and you’ve only heard of one woman scientist in your life, 90% of the time you’re safe answering “Who is Marie Curie?” And most Jeopardy questions give you two hints, “This capitol of California is the site of some obscure thing.” “What is Sacramento?” You didn’t need to know anything at all about the obscure thing, just the capitol of California. [/QUOTE] What’s the obscure thing? 😕 hee hee [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baffling-gaps-in-knowledge/377423.md?page=4)