God, these education ones reminded me of one I had suppressed in the interest of preserving my sanity. Our high school geography teacher told us that the Gulf of Aqaba (located to the east of the Sinai Peninsula) was so named because ‘Aqaba’ means ‘water’–so, you know, the Gulf of Water. Makes sense, right? Gulfs *are * full of water. :smack: We told her she was probably thinking of ‘agua’.
My fifth grade social studies teacher was going over maps and directions. She used this example:
If you’re facing north, east is on your right, west is on your left, and south is behind you… ok so far. But then you turn around, and east is still on your right, while west is still on your left. After a week of arguing, I brought a compass to class, but she remained unconvinced.
Yes, he did.
Luckily for me, he wasn’t my math teacher, but one whose student my wife was tutoring (unluckily for him).
I’d say it may also depend on your pastor. I went to a Southern Baptist church for several years, and while the fellow believed very sincerely in a literal interpretation of the Bible, he also never said that other religions were the devil’s handiwork.
A short while back, while discussing learning aids for our young son, my SIL said, “Oh! You should get him that reading program that everyone is using. You know. Hooked On Ebonics.”
I’m sorry to say I laughed out loud, nearly spraying everyone with my drink.
Nope, Sumerian is the first written language that we know of (written in cuneiform script) and we can read it just fine (with tens of years of training!). Egyptian was also written down earlier than Sanskrit, and Linear A around the same time as Sanskrit, I believe. Linear B is actually Greek, just in a different script, and we can read that as well.
Sanskrit is, however, the first written Indo-European language. And it has, like, 8 noun cases! Gives me nightmares just to think about it.
That is something I hear from students who are in class with me. It bothers me a lot. I mean, serious, I understand if you think you don’t need to read these out-dated things called books, but why are you in a university English program? More than half of the content English classes are survey-of-literature-type classes. These people don’t want to “waste their time” reading but want to get a degree in English, or even English Education.
It is a little scary…specifically when I think of my son/daughter being taught by these people…
Brendon
I’m an avid City of Heros/Villains player; I know exactly what a tanker is. 
Reminds me of the Dungeon Master I had who insisted that female characters needed to pay extra for special armor to protect their crotches. :rolleyes:
Well to be fair I HAVE heard before that Satanists portray the pentagram points up to symbolize horns; I’ve never cared enough to find out if it’s true. Confusing “bad witches” with Satanists is ignorant, of course.
That was a serious hypothesis at one time, after green monkeys were discovered to harbor AIDS, although it’s only an assumption that they were black, it being Africa.
Heh. I remember being told as a child by another kid that the more you read the stupider you get. Bet he grew up to join the Bush Administration.
Another good one was some years ago, when Pat Buchanan ( sp ) said that Earth Day was when the people in California worshipped dirt.
Then there was a little survey I read about in Time quite a few years ago, where they asked Americans what they thought about a fictional country; quite a few people expressed hostility towards this imaginary place and blamed their immigrants for taking American jobs. 
Similarly, in a U.S. Armed Forces survey of dietary preferences, braised trake and buttered ermal were among the foods listed. The ermal was a bit more popular among the troops than was the trake.
I once strolled into a bagel shop and asked for a dozen bagels. The nice young lady behind the counter said, “Okay, ten bagels, right?” The look on my face must have clued her in and she realized she had it wrong.
“Fourteen?” was her next guess.
I was out on a date with this guy who was very nice but VERY boring. I was sitting there thinking about whether or not I ever wanted to go out with him again when he saw my pentacle, lit up and asked in all seriousness, “Are you Jewish?”
Last year I went home from school for a visit with the family.
Please note: this is the first time my boyfriend was meeting them.
My grandma was talking about this book she had just read. Now, my grandparents being Southern Baptist was hard enough for my liberal bf to ignore. But now she was talking about how we won the Revolutionary War. I said that France had helped fund the patriot army, and she corrected me. Her book told about how The Jews had given the Americans money to fight.
Me: what do you mean “The Jews”?
Her: you know, Jewish people.
Me:??
Apparently “The Jews” had somehow all gotten together to decide this or something…
It consistently amazes me how organized an entire ethnicity spanning vast tracts of land can be so organized about world domination. Maybe they deserve world domination? They’ve clearly demonstrated superior management skills.
When I was in middle school in Korea, two of my classmates asked me whether the Eiffel Tower was in Paris or in France. They thought I’d know, because I was from “the West.” I patiently explained that both of them were, in fact, correct, and then showed them a map of France with “Paris” marked by a star.
I made a point of choosing one from my aunt because the ones I’d initially written were all from the US. While I do have heard a lot of stupidity in Europe, I think there may be more of a social stratification or something… I can’t imagine an European border guard claiming that “you can’t be a foreigner, you’re white.” In Europe I can better afford to avoid the utterly stupid as soon as I identify them, with the sad exception of several relatives. I’ve never heard the levels of stupidity from European lawyers that I’ve heard from US ones (and it’s not because I don’t speak with European lawyers). I knew a Spanish woman who didn’t know you need a passport to go to Costa Rica until she got to the airport… but as soon as you scratched a bit you realized she came from “trash” and, while she’d been able to get herself educated, she still had the mentality of a horse thief (“live day to day” and “there’s no such thing as cheating”). Americans who’ve asked me whether I already had my Visa for Germany (hi, I’m from Spain) or insisted that I needed one for Argentina even though I had a letter from the Argentinian embassy stating I did not didn’t seem generally dumb otherwise… they were ignorant, not “intrinsically rotten” like that woman; they’d had more than one address in their lifes; they’d been abroad; some had lived and worked abroad; once I explained things slow enough, they got it.
Yeah, that’s really dumb. Everyone knows that it’s male characters who have to pay more to protect their crotch.
olives, Latin isn’t sacred to Catholics. It’s just the scholarly language that we used throughout the centuries and the language in which we used to have Mass because this had the advantage of not needing to translate books (priests used to be among the few who could read, it was more practical to teach latin to them than to translate books), and which was discarded as “the usual language for Mass” in the 1960, although sometimes when you’re abroad it would be nice to have half an idea what the hell the priest is saying. There’s four-letter-words in Latin, you know
It figures. sigh
Olives,
Fighting Her Own Ignorance Since 1983
FWIW, Also Making Weird Look Good Since 1983
You think? So why does the Israeli government look like a bunch of inept kleptocrats, then? :mad: 
You’d think we’d have a Model Administration, being Jewish and Controlling the World, and all…
[Sorry, pet peeve. Carry on…]
Don’t feel bad about it. I’ve been in the same boat since the 60’s.
Sadly, it doesn’t mean I’m wiser. Just older…