Is there such a thing as a stupid question? A teacher once told me that the question on the unstoppable force and immovable object is stupid because you can’t have them both at the same time. Does this fit in that catagory and if so are there others, or is it true that there is no such thing as a stupid question?
The best wisdom I know of is that the only stupid question is the one left unasked.
Teammate: What time is it?
Yogi: You mean now?
- Lawrence Peter Berra, I Didn’t Really Say Everything I Said
To sketch out a few instances for classroom purposes:
[list]
[li]questions that have nothing to do with the subject matter being discussed. (i.e. when discussing the pioneers travel across america, asking what Louis and Clark used to wipe their butts after going to the bathroom)[/li][li]questions where you don’t actually care about the answer, you’re just trying to score class participation/suck up points with the teacher.[/li][li]questions regarding a subject matter you KNOW you’re not understanding, but everyone else is, and you waste classtime slowing everyone else down rather than going in for private consultation afterwards.[/li][li]Questions you’ve already been told the answer to, and is thus no longer an ignorant question.[/li]furthering that, questions that have already been asked and answered while you weren’t paying attention.
In the context of the Straigh Dope, these are considered stupid questions. Ask them at your own peril.
A teacher of mine used to claim that
After having guided morons at a physics lab ,I realised that that’s not the entire truth, and I now prefer:
At one point, I would have said there are no stupid questions. But having been helping screen Cecil’s mail for a while, I retract that.
There are certainly questions that SOUND so stupid that they are hilariously funny. My most recent favorite: “Since Cecil knows everything, can you tell me if my boyfriend is cheating on me?”
Better a silly question than a stupid mistake.