# I'm surprised EVERYONE can't... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231 "2019-10-24T12:40:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MoonMoon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonmoon/32/2959_2.png) [@MoonMoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoonMoon)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/81 "2019-10-25T13:12:30Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > \ > > Also, regarding swimming: I cannot swim. It wasn’t due to lack of access to water or lessons when I was a kid – my parents had me go through lessons three or four times. Without fail, I did OK until the time came to put my face underwater, at which point I would panic, freak out, and get highly upset. (Also, I was extremely skinny as a kid, and not particularly buoyant.) Eventually, my parents gave up on the idea, and I never cared to pursue it further. That said, a few years ago, a friend of mine took me to a pool for an afternoon, and she got me to the point where I could completely submerge myself, and open my eyes. So, who knows, I might learn to swim sometime. SAME. I grew up in New England, surrounded by lakes, ponds, the ocean and had ready access to public and private pools. We had swimming lessons every year, but I never got past extreme beginner stage for the same reasons as you. I have always loathed the feeling of my head underwater, and I was skin and bones and tall, so I did not float. I can dog paddle now, but that’s it (and I still don’t go underwater). ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/82 "2019-10-25T13:37:14Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > …And he, like most drivers around here simply doesn’t have the cognitive and reasoning ability to understand my speed is making him 40 seconds later – to the stoplight ahead. Seriously. > > … I was never as bad as you describe, but I used to pretty much be the SECOND fastest thing on the road (imagining the FASTEST would attract the cops! :rolleyes:) For a while, I did a particular 80 minute drive many times a week. At some point, I realized that if I busted my ass, sped, tried to pass everything on the road … - I might make it in close to 70 minutes. And if I poked along, missed every light, and ran into traffic, it might take me 90 minutes. Somehow that realization - that there wasn’t much difference between a 70 minute drive and a 90 minute one - cured me of any tendency to try to “make time”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/83 "2019-10-25T14:26:28Z")
> [@susan](#): > > W > Lefty loosy, righty tighty. OMG this and “swipe left” or “swipe right” confuse the shit out of me! Because when I think lefty loosy, I think to myself “If you want to loosen it, put your hand on the left.” Which is wrong, you put your hand to the right and then move it towards the left. And if you want to swipe left, seems to me you put your hand to the left and then swipe, but no, swiping left means putting your hand to the \*right \*and then swiping. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21825_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/84 "2019-10-25T14:54:10Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > I learned recently that swimming is a race thing. White kids learn how to swim. Black kids (formerly banned from some public pools) often do not. Takes me back to boot camp in '73. I grew up in a lily-white neighborhood. My grandparents had a cabin on a river, so I was in the water almost every week in the summer. I wasn’t a great swimmer, but I could move about and keep myself afloat. Then comes boot camp, and the realization that the black girls who grew up in the city not only couldn’t swim, but panicked when in deep water. It was really hard to wrap my head around that someone my age couldn’t at least dog-paddle, tho I did recognize that not everyone’s grandparents had a waterfront property. ---
**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:** [October 25, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/85 "2019-10-25T14:58:16Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > OMG this and “swipe left” or “swipe right” confuse the shit out of me! Because when I think lefty loosy, I think to myself “If you want to loosen it, put your hand on the left.” Which is wrong, you put your hand to the right and then move it towards the left. And if you want to swipe left, seems to me you put your hand to the left and then swipe, but no, swiping left means putting your hand to the \*right \*and then swiping. Sounds like you’re thinking of “left” and “right” as adjectives when you should be thinking of them as adverbs. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/86 "2019-10-25T15:13:53Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Reasonably estimate how long relatively mundane things will take – trips, tasks, commutes, events, etc. I’m continually amazed at how rare this skill appears to be, when it seems so instinctive for me. I know to take account of time for walking, for the things that are likely to go wrong (i.e. the train/bus is 5 minutes later than expected), the wait for the elevator, etc, which most folks seem to forget. My in-laws lived 55 miles away and 52 of those miles were highway miles. You would think something like 45 minutes to an hour would be a decent ballpark travel time estimate…but no, they’d routinely show up _2-3_ hours late any time we specified a time for an activity. Why so late? The answer was always “traffic was terrible”.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/87 "2019-10-25T15:14:06Z")
Three quarters of these posts involve math and spatial reasoning. As someone with dyscalculia, I find this faintly amusing. People with dyscalculia have workarounds for daily math challenges that they simply cannot do. Not will not. Cannot. Like figuring out 20% by using their fingers, under the table. I’m not kidding. Maps, left and right, remembering dates, all of those and many more. Swimming now, I can swim. But that is due to my mother being a very poor swimmer (lessons were not in the picture in her childhood) and making us all take swimming lessons every summer until we could pass “advanced” so we wouldn’t drown. Having been taught to both cook and bake as a small child by my grandmother, I do find it startling to come across an adult who can’t make cooked food. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/88 "2019-10-25T15:46:21Z")
> [@Esturionette](#): > > How to post a parcel. > > Working at the post office, it baffles me how many people try to give me an unwrapped item, saying “I want to post this to the address I have on my phone”. I don’t know about the US, but here in the UK it is the customer’s job to bring the item securely packaged and addressed, so that it only needs a postage label. The packing materials are there to buy and use before you get to the counter. > > Even the most basic stuff like where to put the address on the envelope or where to put the stamp. Why isn’t it obvious that the sender’s address needs to be visibly smaller than the receiver’s address? > > Once in a while we get a customer who walks in, looks around, and asks “do you have any stamps here?”. I’m always tempted to say no. I was recently in the post office, and a couple had a large, totally-unwrapped basket filled with objects. They wanted to send it to an address in Russia. They thought they could just attach an address tag to the handle. The mind boggles. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/89 "2019-10-25T17:24:19Z")
Re: lefty loosey - one thing that often gives me pause is “clockwise/counterclockwise.” It is in no way intuitive for me. I always sense that it depends on where the clock is WRT me, and have to envision a clock situated on the wall/floor/whatever, and mentally trace the pattern the hands would move. Of course, as phones become more relied upon, such an analog reference may become less prevalent. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/90 "2019-10-25T19:07:47Z")
> [@Esturionette](#): > > I don’t know about the US, but here in the UK it is the customer’s job to bring the item securely packaged and addressed, so that it only needs a postage label. The packing materials are there to buy and use before you get to the counter. It’s the same here. What may be confusing people is that we have (and the UK probably also has them) shops where you can bring in loose things, and the staff packs and ships them for you. The Post Office does have a small selection of free boxes for use with specific classes of service, and they sell a few types of boxes, but I don’t think they sell bubble wrap, peanuts, or tape, so it’s really not a good self-serve setup for people that don’t understand the amount of abuse their thing will receive along the way. My partner is hopelessly directionally dyslexic. Not just an inability to find north, but to say “go down to” somewhere that’s north of here, or to “go up to” someplace south. And I’m always saying “Your other left!” I can’t imagine that’s a lack of education - are some people just not able to have a built-in mental map of well, maps? ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/91 "2019-10-25T23:42:49Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Three quarters of these posts involve math and spatial reasoning. As someone with dyscalculia, I find this faintly amusing. People with dyscalculia have workarounds for daily math challenges that they simply cannot do. Not will not. Cannot. Like figuring out 20% by using their fingers, under the table. I’m not kidding. Maps, left and right, remembering dates, all of those and many more. I haven’t done real math in years and years, but I always did really well in it. But doing math in front of someone? Like not in a school setting with scrap paper and quiet? Can’t do it. So even without dyscalculia, it’s a struggle for those of us who had an A+ in AP Calculus back in the day because it’s the wrong kind of math in public. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/92 "2019-10-25T23:54:29Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Another one is awareness of the 4 cardinal directions. It is pretty rare that I couldn’t tell you what general direction I am facing, whether indoors or out. > > There are a couple of places that I go that kinda confuse me - and that always makes me (very mildly) uncomfortable. We visit a family property in Michigan, where the small lake is at somewhat of an angle. Looking out the front windows, I have to intentionally remind myself where the sun will rise and set. Also, being from Chicago, the one basic directional rule is that the lake is always to the east. In Michigan, when heading towards the lake you are going west. Always messes me up. > > Chicago is such a strict grid, that it probably really reinforces directional awareness. > > It sorta surprises me that some people have no idea which way is north, and don’t care that they don’t know. My first couple of days in Hawaii I was a little disoriented. Growing up on the west side of Los Angeles, I was used to Mountains to the East – Ocean to the West. In Hawaii, it’s Mountains in the Middle and Ocean everywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/93 "2019-10-26T00:19:26Z")
One of my sons is working on an advanced degree in sciencey stuff. He can’t understand how I can figure out a tip in my head. It seems he must have missed school the day they taught that determining percentage is basically the same as division. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/94 "2019-10-26T01:23:46Z")
> [@Frazzled](#): > > Believe it or not, I can kind of see his logic. > > Suppose he’s on a flight that leaves Houston on Thursday, Oct 24 at 2PM local time. The time in Tokyo at that same time is Friday, Oct 25 4AM. > > A direct flight from Houston to Tokyo is 14 hours and 5 minutes which means he’ll arrive in Tokyo at local time 6PM. > > So if he just gave a cursory look at his ticket he’d see a departure of 2PM and arrival 6PM - so 4 hours! Let’s just hope he’s not trying to make a Friday morning meeting in Tokyo because he’s going to be a bit late… That must have been a helluva shock. You show up with one good magazine and burn through it in about three hours, and then you’ve still got 11 hours to kill… ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/95 "2019-10-26T03:24:21Z")
… be on time. (This is a major human divide, much discussed on the SDMB and elsewhere.) I find it natural, basic and easy to do what’s necessary to be punctual, which I am for pretty much everything. We all know people who close to incapable of this, which seems to me a deplorable way to go through life. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/96 "2019-10-26T05:52:16Z")
> [@Frazzled](#): > > You are of course correct, the first time I flew to Asia I knew I was in for a loooonnnggg flight, but I was still bemused by what the International Date Line did for my arrival times. I remember flying from Toronto to Perth, Australia a few times. The International Date Line did make things a little weird. I’d leave Toronto on Friday night, connect through Honolulu and Sydney, and arrive in Perth on Sunday afternoon. Okay, fine, that kind of makes sense, I guess. But I’d leave Perth, Australia early Monday morning (a red-eye, usually leaving at 0030, connecting through Sydney and Honolulu), and arrive back in Toronto, after thirty hours in transit, on … early Monday evening? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/97 "2019-10-26T06:40:37Z")
> [@FinsToTheLeft](#): > > Figure out distance in Toronto. Toronto is laid out on a regular grid with a distance of 100 chains between major streets. A chain is 66 feet, so fortuitously 100 chains is almost exactly 2 km, it’s 11 m longer. > > Knowing you are on or near a major E/W and N/S street allows you to quickly determine in your head how far it is. From my house to City Hall I go 2 major streets south and 1 major street east = 6 km. If I plug the addresses into Google I get between 5.8km (walking along the hypotenuse for part of the trip) or 6.0km if I stick to E/W/N/S only. The only challenge is knowing which streets are the baselines for the original city plan. Perhaps a bit of a hijack, but I’ll post it anyway. In a way, it’s almost easier to understand Toronto if you know Imperial measurements. “Concession roads” (the main roads, or “baselines” to which you are referring) are 1.25 miles apart, both east and west, and north and south. From north to south, they are: Steeles Avenue Finch Avenue Sheppard Avenue York Mills Avenue/Wilson Road Lawrence Avenue Eglinton Avenue St. Clair Avenue Bloor Street Queen Street So, if I’m at Queen Street and Yonge Street, and I want to get to Lawrence, I know it’s four concessions, or 4 x 1.25, or five miles. Probably a subway ride. But getting to Bloor is only 1.25 miles–sure, that’s walkable, if I have 30 minutes to spare. Yonge Street is the dividing line between the above roads and their East/West designations (e.g. Queen Street East and Queen Street West). But even eastbound and westbound, the concession roads are apparent. From Yonge, eastbound: Bayview Avenue Leslie Street Victoria Park Avenue Warden Avenue Kennedy Road McCowan Road Markham Road Morningside Avenue I won’t bother with the westbound roads, but they are there too. Point is, if you can remember the concession roads, and can remember the Imperial system, you can estimate how far you are from anywhere. You can, of course, convert the result into metric if you like. (Source: I worked for the City of Toronto in the early 1980s, and absolutely had to know the concession roads in Imperial units in order to do my job.) [end hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/98 "2019-10-26T08:29:09Z")
> [@susan](#): > > Lefty loosy, righty tighty. This didn’t work for me. Eventually I heard it as “clockwise is lockwise,” which stuck, but I was never quite able to conceive of a rotating object as rotating to the “left” or “right.” ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/99 "2019-10-26T08:33:50Z")
I’m always surprised just how many men don’t know there’s boobs bigger than DD cups, and just how many women think the average male penis size is 8 inches. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2019, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/100 "2019-10-26T08:58:01Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > One of my sons is working on an advanced degree in sciencey stuff. He can’t understand how I can figure out a tip in my head. It seems he must have missed school the day they taught that determining percentage is basically the same as division. I’m a reasonably smart person but I can’t figure out tips in my head. Yes, yes, I know it’s a form of division. What you don’t know about me is that it took _four years_ for me to learn to divide even with tutoring. I spent years in remedial/low level math. I’m sure nowadays I’d be given some sort of diagnosis. Back then, I was just called lazy, stubborn, or some other adjective because, you know, I was _so good_ at all the other subjects what was the problem with math? Must be an attitude problem or willful defiance or something. I did, eventually, struggle my way to pre-Calculus. Where I crashed and burned spectacularly. I had had enough. That was the last math I tried to learn. I’m a big fan of calculators, though - give me a calculator I’m a whiz. I have zero inhibitions about whipping one out in public and too bad if you think that makes me inadequate, that I need a calculator (or paper and pencil) to do math. It’s not for lack of trying, I just can’t hold math in my head so I’ve learned how to compensate. I can set problems up on a calculator, or even on paper, and work through them with reasonable accuracy but do it in my head? No way. (I can, however, make change on the fly - that one I managed to learn. I use the “count up” method. Someone gives you $2.00 for $1.63 total and you count pennies 64, 65, then a dime to get to 75 (or two nickels to get there) then a quarter and you’re at two and done. Doing this in front of some my younger coworker generates expressions of awe and assertions of math genius. If they only knew…) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231.md?page=6)