# It frightens me that people don't know these things **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 25, 2003, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207 "2003-06-25T03:02:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/421 "2003-08-31T17:25:29Z")
[Re: Heavy Boots](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=7478) ---
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/422 "2003-08-31T17:34:27Z")
A **University Professor of Computer Science** asked me why “Word deletes characters as he is typing new ones”. He was in the overwrite mode after hiting the insert key, of course. The bad thing is, he also gives text processing classes. Don’t ask me how. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/423 "2003-08-31T22:23:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Flamsterette\_X \* > Dad hears the word “Sylvester”… he immediately asks us: “Isn’t Sylvester a **dog**?” We looked at each other and had to laugh. > > Shouldn’t everyone who’s been exposed to Looney Tunes cartoons know that Sylvester is a **cat**? 😕 I agree with you. But then again, there are these two bits of trivia. The first time the name Sylvester appeared was the name of the dog in the 1944 cartoon [Hare Force](http://www.jenn98.com/bugs/1944-6.html). The first appearance of cat we now call Sylvester was in the 1947 cartoon [Tweety Pie](http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/detailed.cgi?film=5255&p=s), where he was called “Thomas”. ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/424 "2003-08-31T23:48:10Z")
All right, but I don’t think my dad watched the 1944 cartoon. He wasn’t born till 1949 in Hong Kong! (and I’m not sure he encountered it later in life, either) F\_X ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/425 "2003-09-01T02:34:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by anyi \* > \*\*So was everyone else who had to learn the Fifty Nifty United States song forced to pronounced Iowa - Io-WAY? I was. Couldn’t even tell you why. Nobody in the area pronounced it that way outside of the song. \*\* I never learned that particular song, but I’m familiar with another one in which Iowa is pronounced “Io-WAY”. Written in 1912 by George Hamilton (the secretary of the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce), the _Iowa Corn Song_ begins with the exhortation “Let’s sing of grand old IOWAY”. The chorus concludes: “We’re from Ioway, Ioway. That’s where the tall corn grows.” See the bottom of [this page](http://www.governor.state.ia.us/bios/song/iowa_song.html). Incidentally, these revised “Yankee Doodle” lyrics posted by **jillzy** would be sung by residents of Maine: _The 16 counties in our State are Cumberland and Franklin, Piscataquis and Somerset, Aroostook, Androscoggin. Waldo, Washington and York, Lincoln, Knox and Hancock Sagadahoc and Kennebec, Oxford and Penobscot!_ ---
**Author:** ![SanibelMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@SanibelMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanibelMan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/426 "2003-09-01T07:59:34Z")
“Shout 'em, scout 'em, tell all about 'em, one by one 'till we’ve given a day to every state… in the USA!” So, do I need to bring donuts to the meeting or anything? A couple stories. A friend of mine, just before testing for his driver’s license, asked me which way you pulled the turn signal lever to signal a left turn. At the age of 16, he did not know you pull down for left and push up for right. (In the US, of course; I assume it’s reversed in right-steering cars, if the stalk is on the right side of the steering wheel.) It’s just intuitive for me, but my mom let me back the car out of the driveway at the age of nine, so maybe it’s just me. And there was an appalling amount of ignorance on the part of high school students at my private, $10,000-a-year school, concerning states. A friend of mine just recently figured out where Missouri was; she’s a sophomore at Davidson now. There was a girl in AP U.S. History who, when the teacher gave a simple quiz of “fill in the name of the state,” managed to get four of them. Florida (where we were), Texas (where she was going for college), California and Alaska. I mean, _maybe_ it’s understandable if you confuse, say, Colorado and Wyoming. But 4 out of 50!? ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/427 "2003-09-01T10:45:46Z")
A colleague of my wife’s had not only never heard of Humphrey Bogart, but refused to believe that there could ever have been a film star with such an obviously ludicrous name. ---
**Author:** ![tsarina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@tsarina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tsarina)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/428 "2003-09-01T14:44:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by chula \* > \*\*I was 27 the first time I saw one. The only reason I knew what they were is that they were is that they have them in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland and I remember asking my mom about them. Otherwise, I would have thought I was hallucinating when I saw the lights. Kind of ignorant of _you_ to think there are lightning bugs everywhere. \*\* _sighs again_ OK, to all of you think I’m a complete bitch now, bear in mind that we work in East Lansing, Michigan, my co-worker grew up in a northern suburb of Detroit, and I grew up just south of Detroit. Lightning bugs are EVERYWHERE in Michigan, except in the middle of cities. (I’ve seen them nearly every summer night here on the Michigan State campus.) I don’t think it’s too ignorant of me to assume that someone who grew up in a suburban neighborhood in Michigan would know what a lightning bug looked like. Even if she’d only seen a few in her life, wouldn’t she have caught one, like all little kids here do? ---
**Author:** ![PTSandman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f0a364/32.png) [@PTSandman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PTSandman)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207/429 "2003-09-01T14:52:36Z")
When I was in high school, I dated a girl who was about 17. One Sunday I suggested (jokingly) that she check the mail. She was about to go do it when I informed her that mail was not delivered on Sunday. She was shocked. And here’s another one that doesn’t quite fit the “It frightens me…” category, but is still cute. I was explaining to my 5 year old that in order to open a Tootsie Roll, she didn’t need to unwrap each end separately, but could just grab both ends and pull. When I glanced over at my wife, the look on her face told me that this was a revelation to her and she proceeded to unwrap several Tootsies just to see it work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-frightens-me-that-people-dont-know-these-things/184207.md?page=21)