# Did I really just hear that? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 18, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557 "2010-02-18T23:26:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/41 "2010-02-20T13:43:19Z")
So I’m in Rome, standing in St Peter’s Square on a Wednesday afternoon, right after the Pope has done his weekly open air service from the steps of St Peter’s, and there’s like a MILLION nuns wandering around. Loud, brash (sorry) American gentleman taking pictures, turns to his partner and says in a really loud voice ‘Is _that_ a _Church_?’ (italics for his emphasis). Dear oh dear. It’s now become a catchphrase between my girlfriend and I anytime one of us says something stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/42 "2010-02-20T19:13:01Z")
I’m not up on international geography, but in Rome, isn’t _everything_ a church? I understand you can’t swing a cat without hitting a church there. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/43 "2010-02-20T19:26:21Z")
> [@CherryBomb](#): > > Or, man reaffirms the stupidity of the general public! > > I was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science last night with my hubby for a members night of fine dining (well, actually, pasta and salad buffet but it was quite tasty) and after hours exhibit exploration. \ Did you find any of the gnomes? I have, over the years, found about 4 of them out of (I believe) 7 total. I always enjoy going there and looking for them. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/44 "2010-02-20T19:29:21Z")
I was at Sears when I was about ten years old, in the TV department. A woman was looking at something-or-other, and the salesman mentioned a ‘battery eliminator’ (their name for an AC adaptor). The woman said, ‘It runs on _batteries?_ I thought it ran on _electricity!_’. I knew what she meant; but hey, I was ten. I thought it was funny that her remark gave the appearance that she didn’t know batteries stored electricity. ---
**Author:** ![dragoncat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6a8cbe/32.png) [@dragoncat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dragoncat)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/45 "2010-02-20T20:56:01Z")
When I was at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona not too long ago, I encountered a man wearing a tee-shirt that said “Bring Back Pluto.” I asked him about it and he said, “When I was a kid, Pluto was a planet, so I think it should still be one.” ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/46 "2010-02-20T21:29:59Z")
> [@dragoncat](#): > > When I was at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona not too long ago, I encountered a man wearing a tee-shirt that said “Bring Back Pluto.” I asked him about it and he said, > > “When I was a kid, Pluto was a planet, so I think it should still be one.” I gotta say, I feel his pain. I was bummed out for days when I heard that Pluto was being demoted to asteroid or demi-planet or whatever those pointy-head types call it now. Pluto was a planet all my life, ya know? Plus one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes is out of sync now. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/47 "2010-02-21T02:59:11Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > So I’m in Rome, standing in St Peter’s Square on a Wednesday afternoon, right after the Pope has done his weekly open air service from the steps of St Peter’s, and there’s like a MILLION nuns wandering around. If you were really standing in St. Peter’s Square in _Rome_, you should have reported the miracle to the church. They would have been properly amazed I am certain. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/48 "2010-02-21T04:07:02Z")
Another teacher explained to me that the reason we have 24 hours in a day because the circumference of the Earth is 24,000 and at the Equator it travels 1000 mph. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/49 "2010-02-21T04:10:13Z")
I was eating dinner at a restaurant, seated about ten feet from a family part when I heard the patriarch explain to his family that the government had determined that President Obama was _not_ a citizen, and therefore, not eligible to be president, but that everyone in the government had decided to go along with it, because otherwise, Vice President Biden would take office as president. It took everything I had in me not to break into full middle school English teacher mode, march up to him and explain to him - in sequence, possibly with a whiteboard and colored markers - all the ways in which he was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/50 "2010-02-21T06:02:55Z")
> [@CherryBomb](#): > > Oh, quite the contrary. I will be the first to admit when I’m not the smartest or most clever person in the room. I really don’t care one way or the other, actually. I was just genuinely confused over their comments. Genuinely confused eh? So, you weren’t being sanctimonious at all? Let’s take another look at your OP (edited for relevant excerpts): > [@CherryBomb](#): > > Or, man reaffirms the stupidity of the general public! > > The ever-so-charming gentleman accompanying her blurts out with this little gem. > > “Maybe they just stuffed them wrong or something.” > > :eek: > > That is an exact quote. I think my jaw not only hit the floor, but possibly bounced a couple times with the momentum it gained while falling. I looked over at them, they were a normal enough looking pair, in their late teens or very early twenties if I had to guess, possibly siblings, dressed rather conservatively. Old enough to have been able to see a seal previously though, either on tv, in an ad or at school. Something! > > … > > Hubby found me muttering to myself and was equally gobsmacked when I relayed my story. > > Taking longer than we thought, indeed. Yeah, you’re not backpedaling out of this one. ---
**Author:** ![Trick\_Rider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Trick\_Rider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trick_Rider)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/51 "2010-02-21T06:17:43Z")
Overheard at the Tyrell Museum in Drumheller. “Look at these dinosaurs, honey.” Except they were fossils from **THE BURGESS SHALE!!!** For reference, she was referring to something like this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalocaris](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalocaris) ---
**Author:** ![chique](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@chique](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chique)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/52 "2010-02-21T06:21:12Z")
I got to hear Margaret Thatcher give a talk a few years ago. She told us that the British invented democracy. > [@Rigamarole](#): > > Nah, they would learn about French history through the move known as “forfeit”. I know you meant it as a joke but I did a little research a while back and this silly meme is unfair. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a military historian but a couple of years ago I did a little math using stats off of wiki and found that France had more casualties during WWI than the US has had since the Revolution. When the Germans came calling half a generation later I don’t for one second blame the French for saying - in effect - “Play through, just don’t fuck us over too much”. ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/53 "2010-02-21T06:51:47Z")
Actually with as much ass as Nap kicked the French are kinda gettin a raw deal… My contribution was my ex-wife cousin arguing with both of us that if the voting rights act was not renewed (1997?)African-Americans would lose their rights to vote… At the time she was in her third year of law school… ---
**Author:** ![slalexan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@slalexan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slalexan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/54 "2010-02-21T06:55:57Z")
On the subject of Pluto: Last summer, I had an internship in Washington, D.C. and all the interns and I went into the city nearly every weekend. One Saturday, we were visiting the Smithsonian Museums (which was not as fun as I had hoped because it was absurdly crowded) and in the Air and Space Museum, we were taking silly pictures of all the spaces that Pluto used to be before it was reclassified. My friend overheard a couple of people talking about the absence and it went something like this: Woman 1: “Hey, this doesn’t look very nice! Why are there all these random spaces everywhere? You think they would use the space more efficiently.” Woman 2: “Don’t you remember? That’s where Pluto used to be.” Woman 1: “Oh yeah! Now I remember that it was in the news. What happened to Pluto, anyway?” Woman 2: “I think it moved. It isn’t part of the solar system anymore.” We didn’t know what to say to them. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/55 "2010-02-21T10:15:48Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I’m not up on international geography, but in Rome, isn’t _everything_ a church? I understand you can’t swing a cat without hitting a church there. They also have a couple of [fountains](http://anothertrip.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/un-monumento-fontana-de-trevi/). > [@Trick\_Rider](#): > > Overheard at the Tyrell Museum in Drumheller. “Look at these dinosaurs, honey.” Except they were fossils from **THE BURGESS SHALE!!!** For reference, she was referring to something like this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalocaris](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalocaris) Speaking of which, one of my teachers recently corrected me: “no, no, it’s not a dinosaur, it’s a tyrannosaur.” Since she still has to grade me, I didn’t point out that “dinosaur” is the generic name, not a species. A tyrannosaur is, indeed, a dinosaur. Plus it was actually a Triceratops, only the clip we’d seen hadn’t shown the head… > [@L. G. Butts](#): > > Did you find any of the gnomes? I have, over the years, found about 4 of them out of (I believe) 7 total. I always enjoy going there and looking for them. Are those the ones with the 2-foot tall sarcophagi? ---
**Author:** ![Butterscotch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Butterscotch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butterscotch)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/56 "2010-02-21T13:32:07Z")
Out in Rome, (Italy, not Georiga…) one day I overheard an American (sorry) woman who had just come out of McDonalds and noticed a big old building opposite her. She turns to her family and says “Oh my gaaawwwwwwwwwwd, that’s huge. Do you think it’s important?” Possibly, _it’s_ the Pantheon… That, and tourists asking the rather uppity people in the tourist information kiosk for directions to the Parthenon… ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/57 "2010-02-21T14:10:56Z")
A gentleman - bare-headed, dressed in normal everyday clothing, dark skinned and with what sounded like an Indian accent - brought some documents into work to be photocopied, but required a small, simple alteration to be made to each page first. While I was working on it, my co-worked grumbled at me that he shouldn’t have been so lazy and just done it himself. The customer she’d been chatting with (a regular) chimed in to say “They’re all lazy. That’s why they call them towel heads”. Co-worker and customer then had a good laugh together. ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/58 "2010-02-21T15:33:00Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > I have one that I thought was funny: > > I was in Borders where I saw this woman (she looked like a trashy bitch) over in the religion section where her daughter comes up to her with a book on the Vatican. A book of pictures or something. > > “Mom, I found this book on the Vatican for you.” > “[Scoff] I don’t believe in the Vatican.” > “Mom, the Vatican is a real place. It doesn’t matter if you believe in it or not, it’s still going to be there.” That’s hilarious! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Trick\_Rider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Trick\_Rider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trick_Rider)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/59 "2010-02-21T21:21:11Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Speaking of which, one of my teachers recently corrected me: “no, no, it’s not a dinosaur, it’s a tyrannosaur.” Since she still has to grade me, I didn’t point out that “dinosaur” is the generic name, not a species. A tyrannosaur is, indeed, a dinosaur. Plus it was actually a Triceratops, only the clip we’d seen hadn’t shown the head… This made my day. XD ---
**Author:** ![CherryBomb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/919ad9/32.png) [@CherryBomb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CherryBomb)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557/60 "2010-02-22T19:38:36Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Yeah, you’re not backpedaling out of this one. I’m not trying to backpedal out of anything. You and **smoke** can make whatever character judgments about me that you like. I do appreciate the attempt at determining that I was being sanctimonious, seeing as how you know me so well and were right there with me when it happened. :rolleyes: I stand by my statements that I don’t think they actually knew what a seal actually looked like, and the male in the pair made a ridiculous statement that indicated lack of knowledge (be it of taxidermy or biology). Either way, whatever. Believe what you please. I’m done with you. > [@L. G. Butts](#): > > Did you find any of the gnomes? Really? I had no idea there were any. I will keep an eye out next time we’re there! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-really-just-hear-that/529557.md?page=4)