# Is Chalk Like Doom? -or- Weird questions Fom Your Child. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 4, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953 "2013-03-04T00:56:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/21 "2013-03-04T15:12:12Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Now I feel bad for the chalk, I’d give my chalk a hug, but it would leave marks all over my clothes, and hasten it’s demise! Oh, man! The existential sorrow of chalk - every hug brings death closer! Now I’m sad. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/22 "2013-03-04T16:54:08Z")
> [@iftheresaway](#): > > Oh, man! The existential sorrow of chalk - every hug brings death closer! Now I’m sad. Not to mention the fact that it’s formed from millions of tiny little corpses in the first place. Dust unto dust. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/23 "2013-03-04T16:56:16Z")
Not my kid, but this morning at the coffee place I heard a sweet little 4 YO ask her dad, “Daddy, Could I have $20 in my Easter basket?” His reaction: “_What?!_” ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/24 "2013-03-04T17:03:30Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > Not to mention the fact that it’s formed from millions of tiny little corpses in the first place. > > Dust unto dust. If it makes you feel better, most commercial chalk is made from gypsum nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/25 "2013-03-04T17:07:06Z")
My son was five or six and I was driving him to my Mom’s on a Saturday morning shortly after 6 am. (I had to be at work for 6:45) Mom, why are there things and not nothing? And if there wasn’t an Earth with people and animals and rocks and things, what would be there instead? And why? I gulped hard cursed my decision to get coffee AFTER I dropped him off, and answered “because everything grows, changes and becomes something different.” It seemed to make him pause for a bit. Also, “before I was born and you named me, what was my name?” I told him it was “ouch lump”. He loved that one. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/26 "2013-03-04T17:09:14Z")
When my kids were little, it always amazed me how often I would have to seriously research a simple question in order to accurately answer it at a level they could comprehend. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/27 "2013-03-04T17:15:38Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > If it makes you feel better, most commercial chalk is made from gypsum nowadays. Hush, you. You’re harshing our existential angst. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/28 "2013-03-04T17:22:25Z")
Me to the man-cub: Your name starts with J. Man-cub: OK, but I live in _all_ the letters. I’m glad that wasn’t a question, just a confident assertion. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/29 "2013-03-04T21:50:54Z")
I remember one… and it’s actually a little disturbing that I remember this. But when I was a wee lad in probably about 1st grade, my mom was getting me ready for a bath or something. And I popped a boner, for one reason or another, and I asked my mom something like, “Why does it do that?” And Mom said something like, “do what?” So I said, “get hard and poke out like that?” or something. My memory is very vague. Well, my poor mortified mother said something like, “Well it gets excited sometimes and that’s just what happens when it gets excited.” Bless her soul! ---
**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:** [March 4, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/30 "2013-03-04T23:30:37Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > Mom, why are there things and not nothing? The question that is still being asked, which still has no satisfying answers. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/31 "2013-03-05T00:02:26Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > The question that is still being asked, which still has no satisfying answers. Well clearly if there was nothing instead of things, no one would be around to ask the question in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/32 "2013-03-05T01:55:37Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Doom, the first person shooter that revolutionized the genre and much of popular video gaming, is not much like a piece of chalk at all. > > So you can confidently answer “no, Doom is nothing like chalk. Why do you ask?” But Castle Wolfenstein is. I think it used the same graphics engine as Doom, annnnd, the castle was made of gypsum. And, yes, this was like a job for the Doom Patrol. The _Grant Morrison_ Doom Patrol… ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/33 "2013-03-05T02:09:41Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Wow! This has to be it. Chalk is probably the most visible thing kids have to seeing something get smaller and smaller and eventually into nothing. Back when everyone used bar soap, bars of soap would do it. Having to refill the liquid soap pump isn’t nearly as fraughtly metaphorical. ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/34 "2013-03-05T04:48:49Z")
I remember giving an 8-year-old boy a basic explanation of DNA and how different DNA can make us look a certain way, and how some people have problems in their DNA that mean some things in their body might not work quite right. I finished explaining and asked if he understood. “But why can’t they just buy some new ones?” he asked. Me: “What? New what?” Him: “Why can’t they just buy some better pants? If theirs don’t work right?” It finally hit me that he was confused about “genes” vs. “jeans.” I was proud of myself for getting out of earshot before laughing myself sick. It really doesn’t hit you what kids may not have ever heard before until something like that happens. Edit: I really wonder what that whole DNA explanation sounded like to him given that misconception. He must have thought I was nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/35 "2013-03-05T06:50:04Z")
> [@chizzuk](#): > > I really wonder what that whole DNA explanation sounded like to him given that misconception. He must have thought I was nuts. To little kids, absolutely nothing makes much sense, so that making no sense wouldn’t have made any less sense than anything else. I remember being fairly young (no more than nine years old) and being tormented with the immense implausibility of me being _there_ at _that instant_ and doing _that precise thing_ instead of being anywhere else. The odds against it staggered me. I didn’t ask anyone about it, I just stared into space in a metaphysical rapture as my mom took me to my third grade classroom. Little kids are (or can be) just as philosophical as anyone, they just don’t have the framework to fit their ideas into and so have a harder time expressing them. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/36 "2013-03-05T07:53:14Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > My daughter, having found out that the earth rotates, once asked “so when we’re driving, could we be staying still while the world turns underneath us?”. > > I forget how old she was - maybe 8 or so, and the answer to her question is obviously ‘no’, but I was immensely proud she asked it. The physicist’s or engineer’s answer is “yes”: it’s called “changing the frame of reference”. We change the frame of reference (that is, the labeling of different objects or points as “still” and “moving”) to make the mathematics of problem-solving easier. “The Earth revolves around the Sun” is actually shorthand for “the best model we have for describing the relative movements of the Earth and Sun considers the Sun as an unmoving object and the Earth as moving around it”. ---
**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:** [March 5, 2013, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/37 "2013-03-05T08:07:31Z")
Cars don’t go fast enough for it to be true. At least at latitudes where cars tend to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/38 "2013-03-05T08:15:31Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The physicist’s or engineer’s answer is “yes”: it’s called “changing the frame of reference”. We change the frame of reference (that is, the labeling of different objects or points as “still” and “moving”) to make the mathematics of problem-solving easier. “The Earth revolves around the Sun” is actually shorthand for “the best model we have for describing the relative movements of the Earth and Sun considers the Sun as an unmoving object and the Earth as moving around it”. I suspect \*\*Mangetout \*\*would have been taking into account the fact that he doesn’t have a car that will do 600mph or so which would be about the speed of the surface of the Earth in the UK. > [@kayaker](#): > > When my kids were little, it always amazed me how often I would have to seriously research a simple question in order to accurately answer it at a level they could comprehend. The interesting thing I found when my boys were going through the serial “why?” stage was just how quickly you get into difficulty. Five iterations are usually ample for you to reach a point where an answer is difficult or impossible. Try it. Think of anything that happens. Say “why?”. Answer that question. Say “why?” again. See how far you get. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/39 "2013-03-05T08:25:22Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > My daughter, having found out that the earth rotates, once asked “so when we’re driving, could we be staying still while the world turns underneath us?”. > > I forget how old she was - maybe 8 or so, and \*\*the answer to her question is obviously ‘no’, \*\*but I was immensely proud she asked it. really? What time does Zurich stop at this train?" - Albert Einstein, attrib. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953/40 "2013-03-05T08:30:48Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I have no opinion on the doominess or otherwise of chalk (spellcheck keeps trying to change that to “roominess” - hmmm) but here’s one I got from my Taller Girl, aged four at the time, coming home in the car one day. > > **Her:** “Mummy, how much is for children?” > **Me** :“Sorry?” > **Her:** :“How much is for children?” > **Me** :“How much _what_ is for children?” > **Her:** :“No! How MUCH is for CHILDREN?” > **Me** :“How much…grass? Air? Lollies? What do you mean?” > **Her:** :_screwing up her eyes and beating her chair with her fist_ “I MEAN HOW MUCH IS FOR CHILDREN!!!” > > \ Was I the only one thinking of The Blues Brothers? Sell me your children! As to the OP: Maybe the sentence was supposed to be Is chalk, like, doomed? It is doomed to die. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-chalk-like-doom-or-weird-questions-fom-your-child/651953.md?page=3)