Maybe the problem is with the answers she is getting. What exactly do you claim cilantro to be?
Uhoh. Poor kid has repeatedly been assured that the Honda Cilantro is a hybrid automobile.:eek:
Maybe, but still, why keep asking?
She likes to annoy you?
She asks lots of people dumb questions, not just me.
It’s not just her. I encounter what should be obviously idiotic questions daily, whether because the asker has asked and been answered multiple times or whether they are inherently dumb (the questions, not the people). Things that reveal they did not know peanut butter contains peanuts, feather pillows are stuffed with bird feathers, or that an invention that depends upon time travel to function has no market value.
I’m not asking for people to be smarter, which may not be possible. I just want them to keep their dumbness to themselves a bit more and maybe be embarrassed by it and thus motivated to think for a minute before speaking.
What is the question, who is asking it, and to whom and under what circumstances?
Where is the heart located?
Coming from an 8 year old to a parent or teacher (maybe the MD) is one thing.
Coming from a thoracic surgeon, it is something else.
There are some questions so dumb that even Google can’t answer them. For instance, back when I was a particle physicist someone asked me if quarks were the atom’s engine. (Short answer: No!) I don’t know what Google would do with that question.
When it comes to this board, I hate this bull shit mentality of “Google it” before you ask a question.
No, I will not. because I’m not just looking for a clinical answer. I’m looking for an answer, and maybe some insights or conversation to go along with it.
Not that I post a lot in GQ anyway. But seriously, anytime someone pops into the thread with “Why didn’t you just Google it?” or something to that effect, I just want to slap them.
I think “stupidity” works better in that sentence then “dumbness”, don’t you agree? “Dumbness” just sounds weird and is awkward to say. There’s also an odd feeling to the sentence with “speaking” following “dumbness”.
Or maybe it’s just me.
ETA: I can’t be the only one who wasn’t sure “dumbness” was even a word.
Alright, but I still don’t get how that car can be in my guacamole.
When I say someone is dumb rather than stupid, it implies a suspicion that the condition is at least partially voluntary or cultivated by the individual.
Of course technically it has a completely different definition, but I am going with my interpretation of the nuances of common usage.
I do think there are dumb questions, especially in this day and age of readily available information. If you ask me a question that a 10 second search on google would have addressed, hell yes I’m going to think you’re stupid and/or lazy.
However, I do think you can get away with a dumb question by phrasing it the right way. Like admitting up front that it is a dumb question. If you show that you have some self-awareness, then you get an automatic pass.
I have a coworker who I love to death. But most of our conversations are her asking me questions and me answering them to the best of my ability. Often the same questions, maybe just phrased in different ways. Some of them are good questions, but quite a few are ones that she’d be able to answer on her own, if she’d actually take the time to read something besides her emails. Which is how I managed to acquire all the knowledge that I have. But I’m starting to realize that her memory isn’t good and she doesn’t really grasp theoretical concepts that well–at least not as much as she probably should. I’m not going to stop helping her because at least she’s trying. But being patient all the time does get tiresome. I wish it was socially appropriate to tell someone to “look it up, dammit!”
On one of my first factory jobs I ground up tons of coriander and until just now I had no idea it came from cilantro.
If you like soap.
OK. How about buying a potted cilantro plant and giving it to her as a poking-fun gift? At the grocery store they’re $4.99.
The weirdest part is that she probably wouldn’t get it. As far as she’s concerned now, she’s always known what cilantro is!
When someone assumes the ballgame on TV is live even though the game has natural, outdoor light and we’re watching TV during the night, any related question is going to be dumb.
Maybe she’s playing a really long con and she’s way smarter than you are able to realize, given your comparatively tiny intellect. You bore her and she’s been toying with you for years now.
To use incredible intellect for such a petty purpose would be even worse than being dumb though, so hopefully that is not the case.
Pretending to be dumber than you are out of spite is probably not the mark of a supergenius, but maybe I am too dumb to really grasp the big picture? Could she be secretly curing cancer in her room when I think she is taking impossibly long to get ready to go anywhere?
Ah well, at least she is pretty.
My wife asks a lot of lazy questions. While I am a font of much useless knowledge, I’m not a font of all knowledge. I’ve gotten into the habit of picking up my phone and skiing the exact question to Google and handing it to her, even when I know the answer. It’s starring to work a little.