My girlfriend’s boss, to his catholic secretary on Ash Wednesday…
“You’ve got some dirt on your forehead. Here, let me get that for you.”
The first Ash Wednesday i spent in the United States, i did exactly the same thing. Now, it’s not that i didn’t know what the significance of Ash Wednesday was. There were a couple of reasons for my gaffe:
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As an atheist, i see no particular need to keep track of exactly when religious holidays fall. I’m always aware of the christmas/hannukah/kwanza season, of course–it’s hard not to be with all the damned advertising. But apart from that, i don’t know and i don’t care very much about when these things fall.
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Australia, where i’m from, is a far more secular country than the United States. Sure, plenty of people claim one religion or another on census forms, but far fewer are serious churchgoers. Also, of the religious people in Australia, far fewer are interested in making a public display of themselves. There aren’t as many evangelicals and fundamentalists. And, despite the fact that there are plenty of Catholics, i have never once seen a daubed forehead on Ash Wednesday in Australia
In fact, if you say “Ash Wednesday” to an Australian, you will most likely conjure up memories of this series of bushfires that occurred on Wednesday February 16, 1983, claiming 75 lives and over 2,000 homes.
Morons.
One of my co-workers, a fellow Australian, had no idea that there was a difference between Washington DC and Washington state.
In the qualifying round for the local edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, they asked “How many states are there in Australia? - 5, 6, 7 or 8?”. 70% got it wrong.
And here are some from the glorious “Dumb Britian” segment of Private Eye:
The Weakest Link, BBC2
Anne Robinson: Which month in the Gregorian calendar is named after Augustus Caesar?
Contestant: June.
AR: Name the doctor who founded children’s homes and orphanages in Britain in the late 19th century.
Contestant: Dr Doolittle.
AR: Which D is an area of Holland famous for its distinctive pottery?
Contestant: Denmark.
On preview, I see Andrew T’s Augustus Caesar question. When I was in fifth grade, our social studies book contained the question “What month of the year was named after Octavian?” Since I knew Octavian was another of Augustus’s names, I confidently replied “August”. The teacher (a substitute, admittedly, but still!) looked at me like I was a total moron and proceeded to explain that “it has to be October, because the “oct-” in “October” doesn’t mean “eight” like in “octagon” or “octopus”, because October is the tenth month.” I guess she had never noticed the ordinal “coincidence” of September, October, November, and December, and I didn’t want to be sent to the principal’s office for “talking back”, so I didn’t think it wise to explain that the Roman year began in March. Sometimes one has to pick and choose those moments that present ignorance-fighting opportunities…
Heh.
Once, all the Germans were warlike and mean;
But that couldn’t happen again.
We taught them a lesson in nineteen-eighteen,
And they’ve hardly bothered us since then. . . .
Tom Lehrer
The MLF Lullaby
Of which I will nitpick two.
quote]Easter is not the same day as Passover, Good Friday is the same day as passover.
[/quote]
Not always. Passover moves around on a somewhat different algorithm than does Easter.
And in all the versions I’ve read, the Last Supper was held on a Thursday.
… or something to do with cricket and England …
and if I may try to nit-pick: I seem to recall that there was a 10-month calendar before the 12-month one and that July and August (in honor of the respective Caesars) were added later. All the other ones are either named after gods, or are ordinal. [flame retardant: I am not actually 100% sure of this now, – Age is a horrible thing…]
And speaking of dangerous teachers, I still remember to “definition” of “negroes” from my 9th grade African-Asian Studies class: “short curly hair, broad flat nose, and thick, fleshy lips”. Did I mention that our graduation gowns were white sheets with pointy caps?
I have never heard of Jack Chick tracts… at least, I hadn’t until I joined this forum. And I don’t think I want to know much more about it than I do… which thankfully isn’t very much. Unless, of course… I want to warn people against the evil that is contained within.
F_X
Speaking of dangerous teachers
Elder son’s High School physics class -year 11
(second last year of high school here in Oz)
Discussion is atomic structure
Pupil Ok , but what’s between the nucleus and electrons ?
Teacher Nothing but air . of course !
Here’s one that no one seems to know:
From most popular representations, you’d think that when one crosses the Mason-Dixon line going south, you end up in, say, Alabama. In fact, it’s between Pennsylvania and Maryland. I remember in particular a Bugs Bunny cartoon which perpetuated this particular misconception (“Why’d they put the South so far south?”).
On the serious tip, nobody knows how to learn anything anymore… They only know exactly what they need to know – to do a job, or go to work (try asking for directions - see what happens), or do what they need to live. Nobody reads anything. Check out the buses and subways – nobody’s reading. Kids aren’t carrying books home. Everybody thinks that if they need to know something, they can find it on the 'net. Most people don’t even know that if they don’t know what they’re doing, they can’t even use the 'net properly. It’s awful where we are heading.
**Everybody thinks that if they need to know something, they can find it on the 'net. Most people don’t even know that if they don’t know what they’re doing, they can’t even use the 'net properly. **
My seventh grade Earth Science teacher gave his classes a very useful piece of advice: you don’t have to know everything (he said), but you do have to know how to look it up. Or words to that effect. Of course, that was back in the day … you know, when people actually did research at the library, though it applies to the Internet as well.
Hmmm. Heathen printer here. The forms I’ve seen ask you to ‘sign’ your name. As in signature.
My signature is a mix of printing and the evil cursive. So be it.
To continue with substitute bashing. I had a sub who said that we dropped the bomb on Iwo Jima. When we protested that it was, in fact, Hiroshima, she said that Iwo Jima was an alternate pronunciation. Someone had to get up and show her on the map why we were arguing with her. Although, seeing all the confusion about WWII, perhaps this isn’t as astounding as I thought.
Another sub told me that Laura Ingalls Wilder was fictional. Her name appears on the spine of the book.
Not related to substitutes–I had a roommate once who had never heard of Parmesan cheese. I could understand a variety that isn’t known all that well in , let’s say the US, but Parmesan?
I can understand how someone might not know that Octopuses have beaks. (Or what the proper plural of “Octopus” is… heck, I always thought it was Octopi myself.)
I can understand that many people have no clue about how their computer works, or the various shortcuts available. It is a “magic box” to many people.
I can even understand why a church goer might only have a vague notion of the roots of their religious traditions. After all, it’s a matter of faith, right?
What amazes and frightens me is the ignorance of the most basic knowledge. Many posters here have described some of that.
Basic history for example. Like not knowing the sequence of the major conflicts of the 20th century (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam), or who was fighting whom. We’re not expecting people to know the difference between the War of the Roses and the Hundred Years War after all. I’d consider that more specialized knowledge.
Basic geology. (“You’re trying to tell me the continents move?”)
Basic astronomy. The classic is the “dark side of the moon” misunderstanding, regarding which I think we might have Pink Floyd to thank.
Basic biology. (“The whale is the biggest fish, right?”) [That doesn’t top the story one poster related about someone who believed that penguins are fish though.]
My own story involves astronomy, a beautiful late summer night, and a girl I once knew…
“Wow. There sure are a lot of stars out tonight.”
“Yes, it’s really a clear , moonless night. No clouds at all.”
“No. I mean there are more stars than usual.”
“What you mean is that you can just see more of them tonight than you usually can.”
“No. There really are more out there now than usual. Sometimes there are a lot, and sometimes there aren’t very many.”
::long puzzled pause::
“Ummm. Where do you think the stars go when they don’t appear?”
“I don’t know. The universe is really amazing isn’t it?”
:smack:
Needless to say, the relationship didn’t last.
kaylasdad99
Correct. Good Friday, is ‘good friday’ because it was supposed to be the day jc was crucified. The last supper happened the night before.
By the way, I don’t remember how easter is figured out from seminary, but here is a link that describes how passover is figured out (and pretty much everything else basic about the holiday. Oh, and in case anyone’s still confused, the new testament was originally written in greek, which is why the new testament called the festival pentecost, instead of the hebrew ‘shavu’ot’. They are the same festival though. cite
Alaska is pretty much shrunk down in any map that isn’t of Alaska itself due to the distortions that occur when you take a round object (e.g. the Earth) and try to make it square.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by RobertP *
**and if I may try to nit-pick: I seem to recall that there was a 10-month calendar before the 12-month one and that July and August (in honor of the respective Caesars) were added later. All the other ones are either named after gods, or are ordinal. [flame retardant: I am not actually 100% sure of this now, – Age is a horrible thing…]
You’re partly right, so is Sternvogel. The original Roman calendar (attributed to Romulus) consisted of 304 days spread out in 10 months. The remaining 60 or so days were tacked on at the end of the year and belonged to no month. The new year started on March 1, which was abitrarily chosen each year to coincide with the first day of the new moon that occurred around that time of year. July and August were known as Quintilis and Sextalis. January was added later under the rule of Numa Pompilius , and it came before March and marked the new beginning of the year. February was added at the same time as January and came after December, marking the new end of the year.
Er, I think you have it backwards Hoopy Frood. In the most common flat world map, the Mercator projection, Alaska actually appears larger than it really is rather than smaller (relative to areas closer to the equator).
If you look at the world map in the link above, you can see that Alaska appears to be as big as the entire US west of the Mississippi river!