# The dumbest thing you've heard anyone say this week is... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 1, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630 "2009-07-01T21:13:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Stauderhorse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Stauderhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stauderhorse)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/141 "2009-07-13T13:09:00Z")
I watched _Super Size Me_ last night, and there was one scene where an overweight teenager met and talked with Jared Fogle (the Subway guy). Later on, she said words to the effect of “Well, it’s hard to lose weight, because Jared said you have to eat at Subway two times a day. I can’t afford that, and since that’s the only way to lose weight, I can’t do it.” That’s like missing the forest for the _moss_ on the trees. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/142 "2009-07-13T16:51:40Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > One of these days I’m going to start a thread about the stupid crap that comes out of her mouth all day long. That may be very interesting. I could almost certainly come up with some serious competition to what you have. I know of a mama’s baby basement dweller who could almost certainly top her in the most fallacious statements and implications in a single statement. On the topic of why Star Trek, his claim was that it was “hack writing” and must be classified as fantasy (which of course is always bad): \<\< Even if we were to send a probe out to the heliotrope \* (of the solar wind) it would take ninety-six \*\* LIGHT YEARS for a signal to get back to us at the speed of light. \>\> (This is a paraphrase, but he said the same essential stat-oid a couple of times later.) Now, folks, try to find as many goofball goofs in the paraphrase, plus the general topic. Remember, this is someone who supposedly is well-educated, and very much the gloating know-it-all, so no point of error is too technical to point out. Here is one malapropism to start with. In addition, there is a variation of his dogmatic statement you wouldn’t see from the above paraphrase. * * * - You might want to look up the least common word in the paraphrase in connection with the solar wind, and then try to figure out the actual word wanted. \*\* At other times, he has said 65; that’s a give-away. * * * Okay, I have just given out one explicitly and given a good hint for researching another, just above that. There are a total of seven more in his blurtation and the general claim he was using what I paraphrased to support. That has to be a record, and I challenge anyone to come up with the seven more plus the malapropism I indicated. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/143 "2009-07-13T17:14:54Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I have a phone book in my hotel room printed by a company that has a major mispelling in their own name. :rolleyes: X 2^Googolplex “misspelling” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/144 "2009-07-14T06:08:39Z")
Did you know that the CEO of Ford makes 300 billion dollars a year? That’s why the government didn’t have to bail them out, because they’re making enough money to pay him that much. “I know it’s true, because my dad works with some of those guys.” The fiance of a young friend of ours. We pretty much stopped challenging him then, because there just wasn’t any point. (This is the same kid who couldn’t play Catch Phrase without passing about ten words a turn, because he either didn’t recognize them, or he couldn’t figure out clues for them.) We had started that conversation, somehow, with the JFK assassination, and he asserted that there had been four shooters. There was some convoluted reason for either the mob or the government wanting Kennedy dead, but I truly don’t remember it. This is the evening that prompted my daughter to post Jeremy’s line from Sports Night on Facebook. “I understand what makes a woman think any man is better than nothing. I just don’t understand what makes some women think they have nothing.” ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/145 "2009-07-14T06:42:36Z")
Abstinence was designed to oppress women. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/146 "2009-07-14T10:31:15Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I don’t see the debate here. Obama has a Muslim/Arabic name. Names do not have a religion, names have a language they come from. Obama is not ‘muslim’ Obama is Arabic. Major difference. Dude, I know a muslim named Ma. Last I knew, his name meant horse in some dialect of chinese. Hell, if I converted you could then have a muslim named Marilyn [ok, ok - yes I was born in 1961 and named after Marilyn Monroe, beats Mildred which apparently was a name in the running :dubious:] and I really doubt you could profile Marilyn as arabic until you go waaaaaaay back where it is apaprently a derivative of Marah/bitter or mara/pearl [which I think is bogus, it is probably a combo of Mary and Lynn] ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/147 "2009-07-14T13:49:31Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > My point is that … actually most Northern states had slaves much longer than most Southern states. Why haven’t these states educated their citizens about their slave histories? It may be that some, or many, New Yorkers are ill-informed about the history of slavery in their state, but my home state, Michigan, never had legal slavery. I remember covering that during a unit on the Civil War and the Underground Railroad in elementary school. “Roots” had recently aired, I think. The main point, though, is that slavery was much more widespread in the Southern states, especially when you do a per capita comparison on the census of 1860. Tennessee’s population was nearly a quarter slave. Mississippi was majority slave. IMO, the states that had the most slaves, not just legal slavery, would bear more culpability, but only in an intellectual, it-happened-a-time-ago way. I actually started out wanting to say that the (possibly) dumbest thing I saw recently was a comment on YouTube. I watched a skit by The Whitest Kids U’Know involving GIs named Broadway, Park, and First Avenue using 20 sticks of dynamite to break into the bunker of the Jew bastard German president, Adolf Hitler, on Christmas Eve, 1944, only to die at the hands of Charlie Chaplin. Somebody posted “i’m pretty sure the russians took berlin”. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/148 "2009-07-14T16:18:44Z")
A coworker is currently having a conversation with a customer who failed to send in her paperwork in a timely manner and we had to refuse her account. My poor coworker just keeps saying, “You needed to send this to us yesterday at the latest. No, yesterday ended last night. Today is not the same as yesterday.” ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/149 "2009-07-14T16:33:04Z")
> [@](#): > > On the topic of why Star Trek, his claim was that it was “hack writing” and must be classified as fantasy (which of course is always bad): Give him some credit. It IS hack writing by science fiction standards. It is fantasy in that it assumes the various laws of physics and such are not the same as they are in our world (this is related to the “hack writing by SF standards”). But fantasy != bad, as long as it doesn’t pretend to be science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/150 "2009-07-14T17:54:06Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > A coworker is currently having a conversation with a customer who failed to send in her paperwork in a timely manner and we had to refuse her account. My poor coworker just keeps saying, “You needed to send this to us yesterday at the latest. No, yesterday ended last night. Today is not the same as yesterday.” :smack: Was her brain surgically replaced with a concussed turnip? ---
**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630/151 "2009-07-14T19:03:17Z")
> [@Arglefraster](#): > > This weekend my father-in-law told me that he heard on the radio that heartworms were caused by a dog swallowing fleas. The fleas then laid eggs inside the dog, which hatched into heartworms. Flea eggs only hatched into heartworms if they hatched inside the dog. Otherwise they hatched into fleas. > > The only thing I could figure was that the guy on the radio was saying that the heartworms infested the fleas, and then spread to the dog (or cat or whatever) that ate the fleas, and that my father-in-law just misunderstood what he said. According to a google search, though, heartworms spread via mosquito bites, so that’s not it either. This reminds me of my brother-in-law swearing that the vet told him, his dog had worms because the fleas crawled inside the dog’s butt and laid eggs which hatched into worms. My BIL is like a Stupid Theory Generator. You can give him a couple of key words of information, and he’ll come up with doozy. He always throws in “An expert told me.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard-anyone-say-this-week-is/501630.md?page=7)