How 'bout this conversation, then:
Me: My Mother is a twin.
Idiot: Really?
Me: Yes, she has a twin brother.
Idiot: That is so cool! Are they identical?
And for some reason, that one reminds me of THIS one:
Another Idiot: When is your birthday?
Me: December 31.
AI: Wow, New Year’s Day?
Me: No, New Year’s Eve.
AI: Really? Like, every year?
You know, I think this helped pin it down for me… what I’ve experienced, with what seems to me like more Americans than those of other nationality, is what I’d call “factless self-assurance.”
Your last example underscores this – I suppose the woman who didn’t realize she needed a passport wasn’t proselytizing all about how “I don’t need a passport, they can’t make me use a passport…! Oh, they can?” She just didn’t know something. Most of the examples I’ve encountered in the US (and that others have given here) are of people proudly broadcasting their ignorance, and even maintaining their “correctness” in the fact of contrasting evidence.
Does this make sense?
In the words of Bill Hicks:
[QUOTE]
Most of the examples I’ve encountered in the US (and that others have given here) are of people proudly broadcasting their ignorance, and even maintaining their “correctness” in the fact of contrasting evidence. Does this make sense?
[QUOTE]
Speaking as a person who lives in the United States, this makes PERFECT sense!
Without being able to recall any interesting ignorant comments at the moment, I’ll just chime in on the matter of the ‘<’ and ‘>’ signs. I’m surprised no one mentioned one of the ways they were taught to me, which was to think of it as an ice cream cone. Obviously, you want more ice cream, so the bigger number is on the open side of the cone.
I dunno… maybe I come from a backward school system or something, but when I learned basic math, we didn’t get all of these cutesy stories about eating the larger portion or whathaveyou… We were just told “the number on the open side is larger than the number on the pointed side. Deal!” Just like they told us “the ‘+’ sign means ‘add these numbers together’”
Very few kids got it wrong for very long, either…
Am I the only one who never learned a cute rule for the < > signs? It was just like, “Huh, that one starts out small and gets bigger… less than. That one starts out big and gets smaller… greater than.” How totally boring! I’m outraged! :mad: All this time I could have been a crocodile eating children. :eek: 
Makes perfect sense. Heck, she didn’t admit she hadn’t known it… she was traveling on her own (so no witnesses) and told our employers she “hadn’t realized she needed to renew it”.
I’ve helped the Guardia Civil at airports quite a few times with people who had bought swords and insisted in carrying them onto the plane (nice cop gets package, put name tag on package, gives package to nice stewardess, you get your package when you disembark). You know, none of the yellers ever said “I’m a Canadian citizen! You can’t do this to me!” - they were all from the same country. Some of the Americans and all the non-US’rs just needed someone who spoke better English than the cop to act as interpreters.
No (see right above your [simul-]post) 
Thanks! I feel saner now
still pretty crazy, of course. But saner
Yep, thinking that people with odd ideas about homosexuality deserve to miscarry is shockingly ignorant, I agree. :rolleyes:
Re: the > / < business… did it occur to no-one to say “The BIG number is at the BIG end of the symbol, and the SMALL number is at the SMALL end”? :dubious:
I can’t believe I just read that entire post. And now I can’t resist sharing mine.
Theme: Stupid teachers!
2nd grade. I was really into dinosaurs (outside of school). I mean, I was a dinosaur freak. So in class, we got to the unit on dinosaurs, and Mrs. Jacobey gave us worksheets. “Circle the meat-eaters and draw a square around the plant-eaters” it read. I immediately got to work, but one of the intrepid kids raised his hand: “Mrs. Jacobey? How do we tell which ones are which?” This problem obviously hadn’t occurred to her. She replied, “Um… plant-eaters always walk on four legs and meat-eaters always walk on two.” I was aghast! One of the ones we needed to classify was Iguanadon, a two-legged plant eater. I tried to correct her, but she had staked her claim and wasn’t budging. I brought in a book the next day to show her. So she made all the kids pull out their worksheets and redo that one. That made me real popular.
7th grade. Science class. The teacher (whose only job is to teach 7th grade science) is teaching about measurement. She explains that ‘mass’ and ‘weight’ are different. So far, so good. She begins to go on, and some kid raises his hand, “Miss Speurgon? So, if they’re different, what’s the difference?” She explained that ‘mass’ is really just a fancy word for ‘volume’. Um… I raised my hand. So I ended up being required to give a 5-minute talk the next day on the actual definition of ‘mass’. Again, a great way to win popularity in 7th grade.
11th grade. Drama class. The teacher is trying to do Shakespeare. She asks, “So which Shakespeare play is the only one with an African-American main character?” I raise my hand, “Um… Othello is black, Miss Romang, not African-American.” She looks at me coldly. “We do NOT use racist language around here, mister. The correct term is ‘African-American.’”
I hope you said “African-Venetian, Miss”. :smack:
An’ all this time me thinking he was a blackamoor!
The lady doth protest too much, methinks…
Actually, I said “Okay, what part of America is he from then? Wisconsin?” She was speechless, and quite pissed off. In fact, she’d never considered what a black person should be called if they’re not from America.
Reminds me of a joke:
“Whadda ya call a black airline pilot?”
“Captain,” you racist!
“I think you’re being niggardly with the facts, miss”
Someone in my 9th grade class didn’t know what a poet was.
Also, in the same class someone asked me to name a scientist. I said uh Albert Einstein picking someone he would know for sure. He says “nuh uh, he was only a mathematician.” I knew I shouldn’t of taken general English.
I consider my mom a very intelligent woman by most standards. Well, I was watching the top 7 ways humanity could face extinction on the History channel. She watches for a few minutes and tells me that it was wrong and that it would be divine intervention and that Jesus would come down and save all the believers. It must of been horrible for her to find out that I’m a atheist.
On a related note my brother was questioning why I’m atheist. It turns into a debate and we get to the Noah story and I ask him how do you fit all the millions of species of living things on a ship (and distribute certain ones to places that haven’t been discovered yet) . His reply? On a really big ark. He was dead serious.
You wrote this on purpose, right?
Well if you count utter total bullshite as “odd” ideas…but it’s not about that. It’s about a woman who decides not to bond with her child if he’s the wrong sex. And for the dumbest of reasons. Miscarring is the most horrible of outcomes. But I could see his point. Would be a sad life for a kid whose mother was afriad to connect with him because he might get teh gay.