# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/161 "2012-03-12T10:15:44Z")
> [@eldowan](#): > > One day I went to eat at a seafood place by the mall, in TX. On the menu was a dish: fish served on a cedar plank. > > Now, I’ve known cedar since childhood, and to be fair, the waitress was the stereotypical blond ditz, so i asked her what kind of wood is the cedar plank made from? > > She responds “I don’t know, let me ask the chef.” > > I smile and nod. > > She returns from the kitchen and says “He says its on cedar wood.” > > So, after eating, we go to the mall, and i decode to stop random people and ask them the question. I was in disbelief that people were ignorant of what cedar was. > > I posed the question similar to this: > if you were being served fish presented on a cedar plank, of what type of wood would the plank be made? > > Of 3 people I stopped, only two knew what cedar was. I know what cedar is, but I think that I might flap if someone asked me this question in the street. Why? Because when someone stops me and asks something, by default I want to be helpful, I don’t want to embarrass myself and I don’t want to embarrass the questioner. So if I hear what sounds like a silly question I first think, “Did I hear him/her right?” and “Have I correctly parsed the sentence?”. Then, even after being sure it’s a daft question, I might just mutter something about not being sure and walk away – rather than call someone out. btw I’m british 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/162 "2012-03-12T14:41:26Z")
I posted this before somewhere, but it still boggles my mind. I went to a Sears store looking for a package of Velcro. A sales person came up to me to ask if I needed help and the conversation went something like this: SP: can I help you find something? Me: I’m looking for Velcro SP (looking confused): For what? Me: Velcro. . .? SP: I don’t know what that is. Me (a bit taken aback): Really? You know: it’s that material with the hooks and loops that’s used on things like wallets and shoes to keep them closed. SP: I’ve never seen anything like that. Me: Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me you’ve never seen or heard of Velcro? It’s been around for at least 30 years. SP: Never heard of it. Me: But it’s used on everything. It makes that tearing noise when you pull it apart? SP: Sorry, I don’t know what it is. Me (now getting pissed): How can you NOT know what Velcro is? Have you been living in a cave all your life? (wife tugging urgently on my arm) SP: ::shrugs helplessly:: Wife leads me away, frothing at the mouth about the idiots of this generation. ---
**Author:** ![Jasper\_Kent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@Jasper\_Kent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasper_Kent)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/163 "2012-03-12T15:21:51Z")
I had an otherwise intelligent gf (in her 40’s) who insisted that the confection and the fungus were the same kind of truffle. My mom (81 and pretty clever) only recently learned that the moon causes tides. She still does not understand the phenomenon, though: “If the gravitational pull is strong enough to move entire oceans, why don’t we feel it when we’re walking around?” And don’t get me started on fundamentalist Christians. A different category, I know, because they are _ **aware** _ of scientific facts, but choose to ignore them. Like the relatively intelligent guy I talked to who was absolutely convinced that the earth is no more than 4000 to 6000 years old. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/164 "2012-03-12T15:27:59Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I have to admit some ignorance here. I once thought that truffles the chocolate confection were so named because they contained truffles the extremely expensive edible fungus. > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > They don’t? I’ve always turned down truffles because I hate mushrooms. The original truffle candy was made by cooling ganache (chocolate melted with heavy cream) so that it was thick enough to form into a solid ball, the size of a small walnut. The ball has a rough exterior and is rolled in cocoa powder. When done, it resembles the truffle just dug from the dirt. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/165 "2012-03-12T18:21:45Z")
> [@keeganst94](#): > > I know a girl who thought that Africa was a country in South America, and that India was in Europe. In a grade eleven biology class. She also said that the Illuminati and the Jews control the world and that the government puts dangerous chemicals in airplane contrails. > [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > Actually, we had a falling-out with the Illuminati a few years back. Now it’s mostly the Jews and the Methodists. Do we _have_ to do this in public? You make it sound like it was our fault! ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/166 "2012-03-12T19:00:50Z")
> [@Lacunae Matata](#): > > \ > > I currently live in a college town, and often get questions at the grocery store (apparently I look helpful and competent,) on very, very basic domestic stuff - how to make spaghetti or hamburgers, the difference between bleach and detergent, whether one can substitute Dawn for Cascade in the dishwasher. These questions are usually from basic middle class American kids, not foreign students. In my opinion, if you’ve sent your kid off to university without teaching him to feed himself and do basic cleaning, you’ve failed at an important part of parenting! Reminds me of an experience I had in the grocery store a while back. Young couple with cute baby in the cart walk up to me at the dairy section of the grocery store. The young man has a print out in his hand and it looks like it might be from some social services program where they get a certain amount of money to use on food, but healthy foods are listed – I think the program won’t pay for junk food. That was all invented in my head from a glance at the paper, mind you. Because it seemed very important to this guy to get all the right things on his list. So he asked me what “whole wheat bread” means. What makes it whole wheat? I knew the answer, but I was afraid to give too much detail and didn’t know why he needed to know, so I tried to sum up as briefly as possible. (My BF later told me he didn’t know and would have told the guy that it’s just a term the government makes up to control what you eat. I did not LOL.) I told the guy, “Okay, you know they plant wheat and grind it up to make bread, right?” Yep, he had that part down. “So wheat is actually a grass and what gets ground up is the seed part. Okay?” Guy nods. Got that part. “Before they grind it up to make flour, they sift off the outer seed coating, called a chaff. That’s how they get white bread. If they don’t bother to sift off the seed covering, that’s considered ‘whole’ wheat.” His wife/baby mama and he both considerably brightened at this, that I’d taken the time to explain and gave him valid information. I was tempted to go to the bread aisle with them to help them pick out whole wheat bread, but I just advised him to look on the package for “whole wheat” and just get whatever. He then asked why whole wheat was better and I told him there’s more fiber and maybe some vitamins that get bleached or sifted out of white bread. He pointed to his cute baby: “So he’ll grow up to be big and strong?” And I said, “Yes, and smart, too!” As they walked away, I thought, _at least regular, with all that extra fiber_. I was glad the guy bothered asking someone to find out the 411 on the whole wheat bread thing, so I was more than happy to take the time to explain it to him. They seemed so earnest and appeared genuinely interested in the answer. I wish more people had curiosity about the world around them, instead of just ignoring new information that they don’t understand. ---
**Author:** ![Why\_Child](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b782af/32.png) [@Why\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_Child)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/167 "2012-03-12T19:50:19Z")
> [@grude](#): > > I think quite a few of these are misunderstood humor or sarcasm, mental fatigue, or language barriers. > > I can imagine a few things I have said, from others perspectives, could definitely show up here. While waiting tables, a common question was what kind of meat was in the sausage. Having my sense of humor, I would answer, “Groundhog.” Rarely was the joke understood. One customer got so upset she complained to my manager who then felt it necessary to explain to me that the sausage is in fact made from ground pork. :smack: Also, I was asked, "What kind of meat is in the veal parmesan? I have a friend who reads a lot, without benefit of a dictionary. She often mispronounces words, or just assumes she knows what new words mean. She had a crush on a man with big, brown eyes. Well, she had read “limpid pools” for blue eyes, so she explained to me quite earnestly that “The man has got big, beautiful **cesspool** eyes!” :eek: ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/168 "2012-03-12T20:28:56Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > My friend is like this - she can barely navigate around her own town without her GPS. Whenever she comes to Montreal to visit, her GPS sends her down one of the more frustrating routes in the city, because it’s technically less mileage and she bitches and complains about it every time (_driving in Montreal is so stupid, all those zigzags!_). Can you at least get her to change the routing preference from ‘fewest miles’ to ‘shortest time’? A teenaged girl once asked me what time it was. I said “a quarter past 3.” Her friend asked _her_, “What’d he say?” “It’s 25 after 3.” ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/169 "2012-03-12T20:58:29Z")
When I was in college about 30 years ago we were watching the Cleveland local news on the dorm’s common room TV (waiting for the weather report to come on) when there was a story about cable TV coming to Cleveland. It was a big issue at the time - which company would get the expected to be lucrative license, etc. - but one of my dorm mates didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “There can’t be that many people that actually live in Cleveland”, he said. “Nobody lives in those big buildings downtown. Why should they tear up the streets to lay cable for just a couple people?” This guy was some some small farm town and didn’t realize that some 400,000 people lived in the city limits. He thought Cleveland just consisted of the big buildings downtown. How that guy survived college I’ll never know. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/170 "2012-03-12T21:06:34Z")
Service dogs. Many fail to realize that A Physically impaired people have the right to public access even when accompanied by a dog if it is trained in tasks to help them. B This includes those other than the visually impaired who may have smaller dogs. C Gate keepers can ask it it is a service dog and what it is trained to do. People’s medical conditions are their business. D Service dogs don’t need identification, certification, or professional training. E Purse dogs people feel better with don’t count. Cite? [http://www.ada.gov/svcabrs3.pdf](http://www.ada.gov/svcabrs3.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/171 "2012-03-12T21:30:44Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Can you at least get her to change the routing preference from ‘fewest miles’ to ‘shortest time’? I’ve offered, but she doesn’t want to change her GPS settings, for reasons I don’t entirely understand. I think she’s just accepted that it’s a pain to get here and will stick to the “familiar”, if annoying, route instead of dealing with something new and different. Her sense of direction is really not all that good, and I love her otherwise, so I let her do this her way. I just think it’s weird! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Fleetwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fleetwood/32/271_2.png) [@Fleetwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fleetwood)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/172 "2012-03-12T21:43:21Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I’ve had more than one Asian immigrant or student visa holder confidently inform me that the US has 52 states. When I said there’s only 50, they chuckled at my ignorance. There’s a fella living in DC that thought there were 57 states in the union. Hopefully Biden has straightened him out. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/173 "2012-03-12T21:57:30Z")
> [@Fleetwood](#): > > There’s a fella living in DC that thought there were 57 states in the union. Hopefully Biden has straightened him out. You know that’s not true, right? If not, watch the video, he’s obviously tired, and says, > [@Obama](#): > > “… it is just wonderful to be back in Oregon, and over the last 15 months we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in fifty … seven states? I think one left to go. One left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit but my staff would not justify it.” He obviously was going to say 47 and fucked up. Because 47+1=48. Which would leave Alaska and Hawaii. Sorry if you don’t actually believe that garbage, it’s hard to tell nowadays. With the tea party Poe’s Law is everywhere. 😃 Snopes Page: [Did Barack Obama Say He Had Visited 57 (Islamic) States? | Snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/57states.asp) ---
**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 13, 2012, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/174 "2012-03-13T08:18:40Z")
In response to the Florida election mishap of 2000, one Brit wrote: “Why don’t they just count the votes by hand? That’s what we do here.” An American wrote back “You foreigners in your little countries don’t know shit. Any idea how many voters there are in a state like Florida?” Set aside the fact that U.K. is larger than Florida. Since a polity has budget and volunteers roughly proportional to its population, the inconvenience of ballot counting is, to first approximation, independent of size. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/175 "2012-03-13T09:33:39Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I gave up explaining to my mom that the computer monitor was just a monitor, and the “real computer” was that big thing under the table. [She’s not the only one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_CidIS8YM) ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/176 "2012-03-13T10:41:40Z")
> [@eldowan](#): > > One day I went to eat at a seafood place by the mall, in TX. On the menu was a dish: fish served on a cedar plank. > > Now, I’ve known cedar since childhood, and to be fair, the waitress was the stereotypical blond ditz, so i asked her what kind of wood is the cedar plank made from? > > She responds “I don’t know, let me ask the chef.” > > I smile and nod. > > She returns from the kitchen and says “He says its on cedar wood.” > > So, after eating, we go to the mall, and i decode to stop random people and ask them the question. I was in disbelief that people were ignorant of what cedar was. > > I posed the question similar to this: > if you were being served fish presented on a cedar plank, of what type of wood would the plank be made? > > Of 3 people I stopped, only two knew what cedar was. so, this is a story about you being smug. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/177 "2012-03-13T12:18:52Z")
I had a man stick his head in the door of my store last month and ask me when Valentine’s Day was. Not, “What day of the week does it fall on this year?” which I could understand. But the date. February 14th, for those of you in mild panic right now. He was over 50…he’s been to school. He’s celebrated Valentine’s Day since he was at least 5. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/178 "2012-03-13T12:36:37Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > He’s celebrated Valentine’s Day since he was at least 5. that’s a big assumption. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/179 "2012-03-13T13:15:18Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I’ve had more than one Asian immigrant or student visa holder confidently inform me that the US has 52 states. When I said there’s only 50, they chuckled at my ignorance. I’ve seen the same thing in several Brits I know. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416/180 "2012-03-13T13:26:17Z")
During story time, a librarian held up a toy sea creature and said, “This is an octopus!” (I knew she was wrong, but didn’t want to say anything because she had a book about an octopus that she was about to read.) “Let’s see how many legs it has! Everybody count! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…nine, ten?” Taking pity on her, I said, “It’s a squid.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-been-shocked-at-what-some-people-dont-know/615416.md?page=10)