It’s a cliche that there is no such thing as a stupid question.
I beg to differ.
Here’s my evidence:
I was in Sequoia Nat’l Park a few years ago. I was standing next to “General Sherman,” this is the largest of the sequoia trees. And sequoias are the largest trees on earth. In fact, General Sherman is considered to be “the world’s largest living thing.”
I was looking up at it, amazed by it’s size and beauty. A man comes up to me and asks, “Say, I’ve heard there are some big trees somewhere around here, do you know where they are?”
We’re completely surrounded by the largest living trees (and living beings) on the earth, and this guy wants to know where the ‘big trees’ are???
I stared at him, dumfounded, and then just pointed up. He looks up, says"Oh" and wanders off.
Any other candidates for a truely stupid question?
We were trimming the ivy on my BRICK house back down to an even level when my sister-in-law turned to us and said “Gee, I wish there was a line or something we could follow.”
According to Chris Berman, Dean of Football at Bristol University, “There is no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people that ask questions.” link
I once had a wise teacher tell his class, “Despite what you may have heard, there IS such a thing as a stupid question. However, it is better to ask a stupid question than sit and continue to be stupid in silence.”
Oh, there are stupid questions all right. “There is no such thing as a stupid question” is spouted to soothe the egos of those who ask stupid questions, and/or to encourage people to ask something rather than hold back because they’re afraid their question might be stupid. But as one of my bosses always said, “It’s easier to answer a stupid question than it is to fix a stupid mistake.”
Sitting on the couch at a friend’s place one afternoon, killing time, watching the animated TV program “The Tick”.
After about ten minutes, his roommate turns to him and asks: “Are ticks really blue?”
:smack:
My friend, not the most tactful individual in the world, turned back, and with a perfectly straight face and condescending tone of voice, said: “That is the single most stupid question I have ever heard uttered by a human being.”
I don’t think the roommate spoke at all the rest of the day.
Pauli, an exceptionally bright and intimidating physicist, is reported to have replied to the leading “This might be a stupid question, but …”. with something along the lines of “All questions are stupid”. Sounds horribly belittling to everyone else, but remember, he was he made a living answering questions he asked himself.
All questions note ignorance on a the particular subject, so depending on your point of view, you could say that all questions are stupid. My point of view depends on the person and situation.
Many years ago, I worked for a company that made fax software for Windows PCs; we were a small shop (5 programmers and a office manager). A large part of our work involved testing, and if necessary adapting, our modem driver to work with every new modem on the market. So as a result, our office was full of modems – you couldn’t take a step without bumping into one.
Programmer #5, who was hired at roughly the same time I was, was totally useless – couldn’t write a simple function if you held him at gunpoint. So we ended up firing him, but we let him use the office for his job search. One day, just after his firing, he walks up to me, knocking over a modem or two, and asks me where he can find a modem to use for faxing his resume.
I’m often tempted to ask a really stupid question just to see what response I’d get. As an example, when I’m happily browsing in a Barnes & Noble, in no way giving evidence of confusion or helplessness, and the inevitable store clerk walks up and asks me if I need any help, I want to look the clerk dead in the eye and ask “Yes, I was wondering if you have any books in this store?” I figure it would be especially good if I can time it so I actually have a book in my hands when I ask.
I just got back from vacation with my wife, two kids and 14 year old stepson. We spent 2 days at 6 Flags. They were a hot 2 days and there were many women in not much clothing. We had given all the kids a disposable camera.
We were leaving and my wife turns to my 14 year old stepson and says, “Why in the world would you take pictures of girls you don’t know.”
[hijack]Is this true? I remember reading about this huge mother of a subterranean fungus that was the size of a nice Swedish island called Ven (7.5 square kilometres; I’ll leave the mile conversion to someone else).
