# How stupid are you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 4, 2018, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082 "2018-08-04T05:10:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/81 "2018-08-08T00:03:19Z")
I don’t want to admit how long it was until I caught the joke in the name of the Southpark movie, “Bigger, Longer and Uncut”. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/82 "2018-08-08T03:08:39Z")
> [@blob](#): > > There are a lot of words I “know” from reading books but don’t really know how they are pronounced because they aren’t the sorts of thing that would ever come up in conversation. That one word for me is ‘segue’. I read it, got the meaning, mentally pronounced it ‘seg’. I’d heard people talking about ‘segways’, and understood it, but thought it was a variant phrase - a segue way. To this day, I cannot read ‘segue’ as ‘segway’, and generally say ‘seg’, too, even knowing it’s wrong. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/83 "2018-08-08T07:00:49Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I once honestly answered the question “Do these pants make my butt look big?” Please Sir! We are discussing stupidity, NOT suicidal tendencies. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/84 "2018-08-08T11:02:13Z")
I have a mental block when I read the word infrared. I always have to pause to not pronounce it (in my mind) in-frared (rhymes with ‘scared’). mmm ---
**Author:** ![Hi\_Neighbor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hi_neighbor/32/494_2.png) [@Hi\_Neighbor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hi_Neighbor)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/85 "2018-08-08T12:19:14Z")
> [@blob](#): > > There are a lot of words I “know” from reading books but don’t really know how they are pronounced because they aren’t the sorts of thing that would ever come up in conversation. Yes I think this is what happened with me. I read “corps” before I started hearing it out loud. Or maybe I never connected the two. So there was also a time I thought the Peace Core (that I heard people talk about audibly) and the Peace Corps (pronounced “corpse”) were two different things. I found it strange how no one ever mentioned the Peace Corpse out loud. What was this core they kept talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/86 "2018-08-08T12:46:07Z")
I know I’ve had a bunch of those where I didn’t realize the written word and the spoken one were the same, but I can’t think of any examples offhand. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/87 "2018-08-08T12:58:14Z")
It was only in the last five or so years that I realized that the song, “Nights in White Satin” was not spelled “Knights in White Satin”. > [@betterlifethroughchemistry](#): > > > [@Shoeless](#): > > > > I once honestly answered the question “Do these pants make my butt look big?” > > One of my best friends is just a hilarious, straight-forward person, he and his wife are very happily married, he likes to tell the story about the one time she asked him that, he answered, “Your ass looks big in everything you wear”, he lived on the couch for a week, but she’s never asked him that ever again… I think it was Chris Rock (or maybe someone else) who said that one advantage of being a black guy is that you can honestly answer this question with an enthusiastic, “Hell, yes!” ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/88 "2018-08-08T14:20:42Z")
> [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](#): > > I don’t want to admit how long it was until I caught the joke in the name of the Southpark movie, “Bigger, Longer and Uncut”. Southpark-watching pro tip: Assume everything you read or hear on that show is a filthy double entendre. You’ll only be wrong, like 4% of the time. Not long ago I realized: Arby’s =\> R.B.'s =\> **R** oast **B** eef ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/89 "2018-08-08T16:23:35Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Not long ago I realized: Arby’s =\> R.B.'s =\> **R** oast **B** eef Surprisingly, a coincidence - while Arby’s is derived from ‘R. B.’ it’s from the founders’ names - Raffel Brothers. (Thus the possessive.) I discovered that not long after having the same false realization as you. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/90 "2018-08-08T16:41:08Z")
Well shit. I’m still stoopid. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/91 "2018-08-08T19:21:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I know I’ve had a bunch of those where I didn’t realize the written word and the spoken one were the same, but I can’t think of any examples offhand. It was aborigine for the longest time for me. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/92 "2018-08-08T19:32:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > When I bought a blood-sugar test monitor device, I thought you are supposed to stick the bloodied end of the test strip into the machine. I did too. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/93 "2018-08-09T00:59:52Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > It was aborigine for the longest time for me. It ws ennui for me. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/94 "2018-08-09T01:50:04Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > I have a mental block when I read the word infrared. > > I always have to pause to not pronounce it (in my mind) in-frared (rhymes with ‘scared’). > mmm Yikes! Until just now I’ve never seen nor pronounced the first R. It’s always been infa red to me. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/95 "2018-08-09T02:15:32Z")
Been using Palmolive dishwashing detergent for years. Easy on my hands of course… I always assumed that it bifurcated into “Pal” “Molive”–ok, it’s my hands’ best friend, last name Molive for whatever arbitrary reason… Until one day last year I was idly looking at the bottle when it hit me: Palm Olive. :smack: Not made any easier by the ladies in the old ads always splitting the syllables my way (“Relax! It’s PalMolive!”), and how neither of the plants in question ever adorned a bottle in either words or pictures (that I can remember)… ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/96 "2018-08-09T02:38:51Z")
When I was a little kid, there was this soap called Solyptol. For some reason, I thought that it was called Solypot and I could not be convinced otherwise by my older siblings. I remember the day I looked at the word and realised that they were right. For some time I’d been laughing my head off at the funny name Solypot. I’d thought it was hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/97 "2018-08-09T02:44:16Z")
My dad asked if I knew where his “baked potato chips” went this weekend. Until I found them I was under the misconception that someone had come up with baked potato flavored chips. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/98 "2018-08-09T02:53:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I know I’ve had a bunch of those where I didn’t realize the written word and the spoken one were the same, but I can’t think of any examples offhand. > [@xizor](#): > > It was aborigine for the longest time for me. > [@GuanoLad](#): > > It ws ennui for me. For me it was paradigm. Well into my 40’s before I matched the word to the spoken. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/99 "2018-08-09T09:53:18Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > When I bought a blood-sugar test monitor device, I thought you are supposed to stick the bloodied end of the test strip into the machine. When are they going to start including instruction booklets in those things? 🙂 mmm ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082/100 "2018-08-09T17:28:18Z")
The OJ thread in GD reminds me of another one of mine. For the longest time, I thought that the Kardashian girls were mixed race because I was confusing Johnnie Cochran to be Robert Kardashian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-are-you/819082.md?page=6)