# Ever been shocked at what some people don't know? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 10, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416 "2012-03-10T22:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/581 "2012-03-23T15:18:43Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > WAG: > > “Huh!? This crossword puzzle wants a 7 letter word for ‘The place from which a woman urinates.’ But it only has 6 letters!!” Poonani. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/582 "2012-03-23T15:18:56Z")
> [@Jane\_Elliot](#): > > Don’t they teach anatomy anymore? I know high-school was a long time ago, but that’s when I learned it. My highschool didn’t teach dirty stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/583 "2012-03-23T15:19:33Z")
I need to put myself in this thread. Though this is more ignorance than stupidity. I spent the last couple of weeks, among other things, visiting my cute little niece at her cute little college. It was so quaint! Community college, I believe. I asked my brother-in-law if they were, like, into sports or anything. Do they have some sort of team? My BIL’s jaw dropped to the floor, then he laughed. “Um, the Gators? You’ve heard of Tim Tebow, right?” Consider me schooled. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/584 "2012-03-23T15:31:28Z")
I just remembered one of my own moments, that my husband still teases me about (and I go along with it…): I was maybe 20 or 21, and we were either watching a TV show or movie or having a conversation in which the[trans-atlantic telecommunications cables](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_communications_cable) were mentioned. I reacted in disbelief, mostly because I was struggling with the concept of the sheer _size_ of such a cable (and they are, indeed, massive). My husband laughed at me, because _how else_ did I think that early phone and TV etc was communicated across the ocean? :smack: The fact is, I’d simply never thought about it before and while a few moment’s thought made it abundantly clear, and even very logical and clever, there was - and is - still a part of me that doesn’t want to believe it. I don’t know why, but the mental image of large cables connecting parts of the world across the oceans just blows my mind. Do they stretch across undersea mountains and trenches? Do sharks occasionally run into them? I’ve since read wikis and seen photos and even watched a Discovery Channel show about a cable-laying boat and I know it’s all true… but, _really? WOW!_ One day, I want to go to a spot on the beach where the cables come up out of the water and just look at them. It occurred to me just now that I probably was close when I was in PEI or even in Brighton, UK. Underwater cables as long as the ocean. Wow. ETA: I mean, seriously - how cool is [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eastern_Telegraph_cables.png), from 1901?! ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/585 "2012-03-23T17:12:02Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Underwater cables as long as the ocean. Wow. > > ETA: I mean, seriously - how cool is [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eastern_Telegraph_cables.png), from 1901?! Brunell’s white elephant, [**Great Eastern**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern), loading undersea telegraph cable [**in 1865**](http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1865/march/great-eastern.htm). (Scroll down for the contemporary Harper’s Weekly woodcut and article.) > [@](#): > > Large, however, as the Great Eastern is, she could never hold the Atlantic Cable in one coil, for apart from its weight, which is 5000 tons, its bulk in one mass would be gigantic a coil 58 feet in diameter and nearly 60 feet high. . . . ---
**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:** [March 23, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/586 "2012-03-23T17:37:45Z")
Last year, I was standing in St Peter’s Square in Rome, just after the Pope had done his Wednesday Mass, so we are surrounded by pilgrims, priests and nuns as far as the eye can see. Big loud tourist (American, sorry) beside me points at St Peter’s and says loudly “Is that a church?” Good grief man, where do you think you are?? ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/587 "2012-03-23T18:39:10Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Led by that infamous commie [**John Wayne**](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040724/). You, good Sir, sound just like someone who never read post #546. 😉 BURN! ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/588 "2012-03-23T19:12:11Z")
> [@thelabdude](#): > > My daughter worked at Lowes lawn and garden one summer. A customer asked for Taxus. He was offended when she lead him to the yews. [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/taxus?s=t](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/taxus?s=t) What did the customer expect to be taken to? ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/589 "2012-03-23T19:44:30Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > I just remembered a hilarious one…This young guy (“young” being mid-to-late 20s) at the gas station, who had held the door for me as I entered, made a comment about how speedy I was in my chair. He then said how cool it would be if they made wheelchairs that moved on their own; so I wouldn’t have to push it all the time. 😛 I said, “They _do_ make those, they call them ‘electric wheelchairs’.” He looked at me with a blank stare and started shaking his head, “Never heard of 'em.” :eek: “Never heard of 'em,” is my comeback line for when I don’t feel like clarifying or arguing about something, or when someone takes my sarcasm seriously. Just yesterday, a co-worker was trying to obscurely tell us that her daughter was on her period, as it was important to the story. She was being completely unintelligible, so she finally just came out and said it, blaming the men for not immediately reading her mind. So I just acted like I’d never heard of this biological phenomenon and suggested that her daughter see a doctor. I now wonder if she now tells her friend about the man at work who’d never heard of a period. Anyway, perhaps your wheelchair buddy was joking and just let the bad joke die a dignified death. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/590 "2012-03-23T20:18:24Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > Finnish is a really practical language phonetic wise. A single letter is pronounced short and a double letter long (and vice versa) and if you spell or pronounce it wrong it totally changes the meaning. Swedes, who aren’t familiar with this, tend to make many mistakes, e.g. pronouncing the name Vesa with a long ss-sound, which means WC. You got me. I’m not familiar with the concept of a “long ss.” In English, we have the sibilant “S” sound and the voiced “Z” sound. Are they what you’re calling short s and long ss? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/591 "2012-03-23T20:38:53Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:590, topic:615416”] You got me. I’m not familiar with the concept of a “long ss.” In English, we have the sibilant “S” sound and the voiced “Z” sound. Are they what you’re calling short s and long ss? [/QUOTE] If Finnish is like Hungarian (and it is, in some respects, being Finno-Ugric and all) the difference between a long and short s is, well, the length of the sound. Both are unvoiced. For example, in Hungarin _kasza_ (with a short “s”; English “s” is represented as “sz”) is “scythe.” _Kassza_ (with a long “s,” represented as “ssz”) is “cash register.” In IPA, the difference is: /ˈkɒsɒ/ vs /ˈkɒs:ɒ/. Or, audio links: [with a short “s.”](http://www.forvo.com/word/kasza/) [With a long “s”](http://www.forvo.com/word/kassza/). ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/592 "2012-03-23T20:55:51Z")
My favorite tale of incredible ignorance is courtesy of Mrs. J. (when she was working as a reference librarian at a state university in the early '80s). A student approached her to ask a difficult history question: “What war was it that was going on in 1943?” He was a communications major. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/593 "2012-03-23T23:22:17Z")
> [@TheBoltEater](#): > > You, good Sir, sound just like someone who never read post #546. 😉 > > BURN! Read it?! I wrote it! But the second post because: There are two Red rivers on the continent, for the ideologically pure of heart who believed one is bad enough, 😛 though the movie Red River is chromatically challenged, despite its name, probably to throw off the HUAC. ---
**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:** [March 23, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/594 "2012-03-23T23:31:05Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > But then, I was in a history lesson once where the teacher gave the dates of the US civil war as 1863 - 1865 They figured the first couple of years were just a disagreement. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/595 "2012-03-24T04:19:06Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Big loud tourist (American, sorry) beside me points at St Peter’s and says loudly “Is that a church?” Depending on tones, it could have been an idiom, meaning “Wow, that is some church!” I recall a foreigner with good English who missed a few questions on an E.S.L. test including interpretation of the dialog:   “Isn’t she pretty?”   “Isn’t she!” (Hint: the first is not a question; the second is not a negative.) ---
**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:** [March 25, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/596 "2012-03-25T00:12:57Z")
My 40 year old friend asked me if he had a Mac computer after using it for months and my explaining to him at least 3 times how he had a problem because he has a Power PC chip in it that Apple has changed from. He asked me what time zone he lived in. He asked if there was sugar or wheat in eggs. I asked why there would be a wheat product in eggs. He said he didn’t know what wheat was. To be fair, a song he wrote is currently on the “top 40” charts. He’s not talentless by a long way. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/597 "2012-03-25T00:18:14Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > I’ve got a friend called something similar to Juan Singh - I observed he’s got some Spanish and Indian connections. That’s interesting he says, he wondered why I would say that. Really? I met a half-black-ish girl with the surname of Fritz. She seemed to have never considered if she had German ancestry, I guess because it was her dad who was “black.” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/598 "2012-03-25T00:38:11Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > My 40 year old friend asked me if he had a Mac computer after using it for months and my explaining to him at least 3 times how he had a problem because he has a Power PC chip in it that Apple has changed from. > > He asked me what time zone he lived in. > > He asked if there was sugar or wheat in eggs. I asked why there would be a wheat product in eggs. He said he didn’t know what wheat was. > > To be fair, a song he wrote is currently on the “top 40” charts. Well, there goes my theory that Top 40 songwriters are all Mensa-level geniuses. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/599 "2012-03-25T00:47:44Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > I’ve got a friend called something similar to Juan Singh - I observed he’s got some Spanish and Indian connections. That’s interesting he says, he wondered why I would say that. Really? Well, considering his name was actually Won Sing, he was probably wondering what you meant. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/600 "2012-03-25T01:00:12Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > My BIL’s jaw dropped to the floor, then he laughed. “Um, the Gators? You’ve heard of Tim Tebow, right?” Consider me schooled. Of my friends in southern California, only maybe half follow college football. I don’t. I heard of Tebow only as he was about to be drafted, and I get Sports Illustrated. I just skip the college articles. I’ll never hear of most of these people again: I can’t be bothered. The devotion of some people to schools that neither they nor anyone one in their families went to baffles me. This reminds me of a story from my former Army officer brother, raised in Ventura, CA, about 50 miles north of Los Angeles, and who graduated from UC Santa Barbara: Bro: Where did you go to college? Other Officer: Virginia Tech (this was before the awful shootings). B: Ummm… Don’t think I know it. OO: What?! It’s a top 20 school! B: Really? Why don’t I know that? I went to a top 20 school. OO: We were ranked (something) last year. We won the (Something Bowl) in (year). B: Oh, football! I was talking academics! I just find it both weird and somehow “bless his heart” darling that this guy’s default ranking of his university was the football team. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=31)