Exposing more of my own ignorance here. This may be more of a brain drain than straight-out didn’t know, but it’s still amusing. A friend and I were sitting around talking, and the subject happened on the national anthem of Canada. To our surprise, neither of us knew the words. Not being near a computer, I glibly said…wait for it…wait…
“Damn, I have to know. I’m going to call Canada and ask!”
Sighing, she looked at me and asked “What number are you going to call? 1-800-O-Canada?”
Interesting point Nemo. I think the answer is, that which moves a person based on his or her life.
The more intellectual pursuits (so to speak) seemed to have gained more acceptance as “sophisticated” or “correct” knowledge.
Knowledge that is admired. Such as having seen a film or play that is deep, thought-provoking and full of human angst etc etc.
But the truth is, that in people’s day to day lives, too many of us already face ugly reality, “deepness” human angst and misery. So a lot of humanity prefers to concentrate it’s interest on what is pleasurable.
I try to read at least one classic a summer. Just to keep myself halfway well-rounded literature-wise that is. Some of them are really intriguing, and I do feel a bit “smarter”. But some of them, (I don’t care HOW cerebral they are) are deathly boring, or depressing.
Take “Crime and Punishment”. Sucks you in and keeps you there, but DAAAYYYUM!! Talk about black utter despair.
I realize that not all “intellectual” facts or undertakings are bleak or boring, but even so, most average humans prefer to amuse themselves with what THEY enjoy.
And at the end of a looooooooooong work day, when they’ve likely been frying the old grey matter for 8-10 hours already, it’s not likely that most of us are going to make sure we’re still well-versed in historical figures, no matter how much they “should” be well known to most of us.
Perhaps we “should” make ourselves a bit more sophisticated and studious. Thing is, after that 8-10 hour work day, and then the commute, and the running the kids to the various after school activities etc, there’s just not much left over.
I wanted to add, I just watched “Street Smarts”. The host was asking people on the street how many states there were. No one was getting it right. Now THAT is beyond ignorant, that’s bordering on stupid.
I didn’t know what a Juggalo was until about two minutes ago, and when I see the abbreviation “ICP,” I think it’s probaby a computer term. Is that ignorant? 
No, that’s good taste.
Maybe I’m being whoosed, but funnily enough, that is the information number for the Government of Canada. Although I only recall seeing advertising for it in the last year or so, so I think it was created fairly recently.
www.communication.gc.ca/information/1800_overview.html
One the topic of people who don’t seem to think that birds/insects/whatever aren’t animals, I had a teacher in elementary school who steadfastly refused to believe that fish are animals. Someone who is responsible for teaching basic science to young children! No matter how much I tried to explain it, she refused to believe me.
Me: “Well, if they aren’t animals, what are they?”
Her: “They’re fish! Not animals!”
Me: “But they’re not animals, or fungi, or bacteria or anything.”
Her: plugs fingers in ears “La la la la la”
[/slight exaggeration]
I think she initially had the idea that “animals” are “mammals”. But she eventually conceded that lizards and birds are animals. Couldn’t budge her on the fish though.
Rather, it should read
Me: “But if they’re not animals, what are they? They’re not plants or fungi or bacteria or anything.”
damn cut-and-paste
You were not being whooshed.
And that is. the. funniest. thing. ever.
::crawls away in tears of laughter::
Well, they have been extinct for a long time. Why should she know what they are?
My 8th grade science teacher, honest to god, once said he thought rockets couldn’t work in outer space, because they “didn’t have any air to push against.” :rolleyes: When I asked him to explain the Moon landings, he said they had simply used the momentum gained by escaping the atmosphere to get there. :eek:
Otherwise, he wasn’t such a bad guy.
As for me, i don’t know what it means to be “whooshed.” 
This may only be me, but I was talking to my gf last night, and I mentioned that the “old man on the mountain” fell off. Some background: We both grew up in New England, I’m from CT and she’s from VT. You know, the state that’s RIGHT NEXT TO NH? Anyway, she had never heard of this “old man,” and was convinced I had made up the whole thing until I showed her the story online, and then showed her how every single state highway has an outling of the face on the signs. Now, if she were from CA or Utah or something, I would understand. But she grew up righ next door! sigh. She’s still cool, though. I guess.
Link: http://www.mutha.com/oldmanmt.html
acetaminophen?
Not playing spelling police but I had to look them both up. 
When I was about 12 I found out my mother didn’t understand that the engine in the car made the tires turn. My father must have been a brilliant man for me to turn out average.
I used to have a printout on my wall at work that said in large type “ESCHEW OBFUSCATION!” I took it down when people kept asking what that meant :rolleyes:
I was hiking in the mountains of Taiwan in 1975 or 76 and met some of the mountain people. They are not Chinese but probably related to Indonesians (at least that’s what an Indonesian friend told me after listening to some of them talk on a bus). The ones I met were very friendly and we had the Chinese Language in common so we could communicate. We talked of many things and the conversation got around to World War II. Most of them had been impressed into the Japanese Army as laborers during the war. During the conversation they repeatedly reminded me that that war was over. They wanted to make very sure that I knew that WWII was over. I got the impression that there were possibly other tribes farther up in the mountains who didn’t know WWII was over.
My uncle (mother’s brother) once asked my epidemiologist wife to explain to him about “how AIDS started because guys in Africa were having sex with monkeys.”
A year or so later, he spent several minutes trying to change my mind and get me to admit that I really did, after all, agree with him that Britney Spears is Hot Hot Hot.
He’s a nice guy, and we love him to death, but getting him to retain information is like sticking pushpins into a bowling ball.
Assuming I’m not being “whooshed” here by someone who has been posting to and reading these boards for some three years: Being “whooshed” means to not get a joke that everyone else gets. The “whoosh” is the sound the joke makes as it zooms, incomprehensible, over your head.
New one here: I am surprised by the number of people on this board who spell “hamsters” with a p. I think they are thinking of those bins you put dirty laundry in.
I know a guy who didn’t know if he’d been circumcised. :dubious:
My sister has recently turned 30. She wrote a cheque for me yesterday for forty quid, spelling forty as fourty.
I give her a little stick about this and she admitted she just never knew if wasn’t spelt that way. Funny the little things that slip through the net.
I used to know a guy who was something of a chemistry wiz. I once had the pleasure listening to him convincing a couple of acquaintances that scientists had finally managed to make dry water! All you had to do was add H2O… biting her tongue hard to refrain from laughing
Another story:
In Vancouver (not the US you’ll be glad to hear), I once met a girl.
I told her I was from Northern Ireland. “Nope”, she said, “no idea where that is.”
OK, Ireland? Nope.
Ok, the UK, England, Scotland and all? Nope, not a glimmer.
Jokingly, I say, you know Europe? “Well, I think I’ve heard of that, but I’m not sure where it is”, came the reply.
Not sure where Europe is? This was in a bar, she was in her mid twenties and she didn’t know where Europe was. Worrying stuff. And we hadn’t been drinking at this point.
And I did once meet an American guy , in Chicago, who on hearing I was from Ireland asked me (in all seriousness) if I knew his friend Sarah who lived in Poland. It’s in Europe, after all.
Yep, shes my best friend, hang out all the time. :rolleyes:
A few days ago one of the local weather guys carefully described the differences between a hurricane and a tornado.
WTF? There are people who DON’T KNOW THAT???