# There's no such thing as a stupid question.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 7, 2000, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901 "2000-07-07T22:40:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2000, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/1 "2000-07-07T22:40:24Z")
Well . . . yes there is.
Back sometime in middle school I had a moment of contrarian inspired stupidity. Social studies teacher was going on about how great John Kennedy was so I raised my hand and asked:
“If Kennedy was so great, why wasn’t he reelected?”
The teacher just stared at me.
My fellow students (at least those paying attention) just stared at me.
It took about 30 seconds of being stared at but I finally realized the stupidity that had just spewed from my mouth.
I’m still not sure how the police hostage negotiator talked me out from under my desk.
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### Author:  [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2000, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/2 "2000-07-07T22:42:45Z")
Whoops, premature submission.
Anyway, I remember that story every time someone is asking stupid questions during a meeting. Specifically, I wish they would crawl under the table and shut up.
So, has anybody else embarrassed themself by asking a truly stupid question?
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### Author:  [@eponymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eponymous)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2000, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/3 "2000-07-07T23:20:44Z")
I once ordered Fish and Chips in a restaurant and asked the waitress “Do fries come with that?” I don’t know why I asked the question, because I knew that chips were fries.
I just got a blank stare from the waitress and a contemptuous “yes” response. My stupidity was reinforced by my date when she began laughing.
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### Author:  [@Morgan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgan)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2000, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/4 "2000-07-07T23:43:15Z")
It was a hot day & that was the only thing I wanted. No burger, no fries. Just a McFlurry. Unfortunately, the person at the Burger King drive through couldn’t help me.
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### Author:  [@lolagranola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lolagranola)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2000, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/5 "2000-07-08T03:13:20Z")
Well, Burger King does promise it “your way”, doesn’t it?
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### Author:  [@SarumanRex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SarumanRex)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2000, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/6 "2000-07-08T04:47:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by obfusciatrist \*
> “If Kennedy was so great, why wasn’t he reelected?”
ROTFLMAO 😃
The stupidest quesion I ever asked was to my physics teacher in high school. He was explaining and re-explaining the same topic to the denser students when my mind started to drift. I began to calculate whether one kilo of matter when converted into energy according to the neat new equation I had just discovered E=mcc, could boil the entire ocean. To do the calculation I first had to know some things about the ocean such as its average temperature, salt concentration, and most importantly:
“Mr Vanscoter, how much water is there in the ocean?”
I said this right in the middle of class, while Mr. Vanscoter was right in the middle of explaining F=ma. My classmates laughed for days, they never let me live it down, for weeks they would raise their hands to ask, “how much air is there?”, or “how much does the earth weigh?”.
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### Author:  [@Benno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Benno)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2000, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/7 "2000-07-08T05:18:50Z")
I might just beat you all with this one…when I was about 12 yrs old, I said to my mum, in all sincerity “Mum, I know that this is a personal question, but…have…you ever had sex?”
The logic behind my existence never occurred to me at the time.
Oh yeah, this is my first ever post, I think…so greetings all!
Benno
-----No Sig Line and proud of it!------ Oh…crap!-----
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### Author:  [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2000, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/8 "2000-07-08T06:10:52Z")
When I spent a summer in London, I did a job for which I was offered payment in “quid”. Since I had no idea how much a “quid” was, I got the bright idea to go to the bank and ask. They looked at me _very_ strangely.
For those who don’t know, a quid is a pound (like calling a dollar a buck).
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### Author:  [@tshirts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tshirts)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2000, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/9 "2000-07-08T23:58:30Z")
**Here’s some that aren’t so dumb:**
“Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” (the crypt in NYC’s Central Park)
U.S. Grant and his wife.
What color is an orange?
Usually yellow. Sometimes green, tan or brown.
Which is heavier, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?
Feathers. Gold is measured in Troy weight, or 0.823 avoirdupois pounds.
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### Author:  [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/10 "2000-07-09T00:03:30Z")
Welcome to the SDMB, Benno.
And folks, remember my definition of wisdom: “Wisdom is when you know enough to NOT ask the question you don’t want to hear the answer to”. EG: “What’s that crawling on my back?”, better is “Whatever that is on my back- GET IT OFF!”
Or: “What, exactly IS ‘Felching’?”.
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### Author:  [@P\_G\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P_G_B)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/11 "2000-07-09T01:25:38Z")
Every question asked by local TV newsmen/women to each other is stupid. They obviously have the answer beforehand and are filling air time. It’s like lawyers, who only ask questions that know know will be answered a certain way.
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### Author:  [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/12 "2000-07-09T04:23:50Z")
Tonight, my BF and I were sitting in a restaurant, and a kid at the next table was ordering some shrimp.
Kid: “I want some shrimp”
Waitress: “What kind?” (No, that’s not the stupid question.)
Kid: Umm…butterfly.
Waitress: Would you like the 12 or the 18 count?"
Ok, here it comes…
Kid: “What’s the difference?”
Waitress (With straight face): “One has 12 shrimp, the other has 18”
Ok, maybe you had to be there. But it was so funny.
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### Author:  [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/13 "2000-07-09T04:47:14Z")
I’ve asked many, MANY dumb questions but none pop to mind at the moment (I’m sure I’ll grace the boards with one in the future). I did, however, answer a question posed by my Design and Analysis course instructor with a “blah blah blah, Mom.” He was not amused.
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### Author:  [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/14 "2000-07-09T15:35:57Z")
Tshirts: Grant’s Tomb isn’t in Central Park; it’s in Riverside Park.
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### Author:  [@Odz\_Bodkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odz_Bodkin)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/15 "2000-07-09T15:56:19Z")
There’s a Grant’s Farm in St Louis. We were driving past it and I asked my new wife - who is from New Jersey - if she’d ever been there. She said no and I followed up by saying “I think it used to belong to a President or something.” My wife sarcastically said “Yeah I wonder who _that_ would’ve been” I asked her why she was being sarcastic and she just stared at me. I understood why about a mile down the road and just turned up the radio to draw attention away from my stupidity.
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/16 "2000-07-09T17:45:43Z")
SarumanRex wrote:
> [@](#):
>
> “Mr Vanscoter, how much water is there in the ocean?”
>
> I said this right in the middle of class, while Mr. Vanscoter was right in the middle of explaining F=ma. My classmates laughed for days, they never let me live it down, for weeks they would raise their hands to ask, “how much air is there?”, or “how much does the earth weigh?”.
These are **not** dumb questions. A dumb question is asking your Astronomy professor, “When are we going to learn how to read people’s horoscopes?”
According to my physics textbook, the Earth weighs 5.98 x 10^24 kilograms. (Okay, that’s actually the **mass** of the Earth, not its “weight,” but hey, people find the mass of various objects by “weighing” them on a gram balance, don’t they?)
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### Author:  [@SarumanRex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SarumanRex)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2000, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/17 "2000-07-09T21:16:12Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by tracer \*
> SarumanRex wrote:
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > “Mr Vanscoter, how much water is there in the ocean?”
> >
> > I said this right in the middle of class, while Mr. Vanscoter was right in the middle of explaining F=ma. My classmates laughed for days, they never let me live it down, for weeks they would raise their hands to ask, “how much air is there?”, or “how much does the earth weigh?”.
>
> These are **not** dumb questions.
In the words of SouthPark’s Mr. Garrison, “There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.” As Sinbad once said to Burt Reynolds in reference to the tabloid feeding frenzy surrounding Reynolds’ divorce from Loni Anderson (and his suggestion that they both take lie detector tests to determine who had more affairs), “You were wearin’ the fool suit that day, everyone wears the fool suit once in a while, today I’m wearin’ the fool suit.” I was wearin’ the fool suit on that particular day in physics class, and my question was, at the very least, irrelevant if not stupid.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2000, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/18 "2000-07-10T01:44:11Z")
Maybe it’s just me but if [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=30259) doesn’t qualify I don’t know _what_ does.
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### Author:  [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2000, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/19 "2000-07-10T03:44:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by sailor \*
> Maybe it’s just me but if [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=30259) doesn’t qualify I don’t know _what_ does.
I was wondering why you sighed in the above thread about “why is the ocean salty?” I mean, I assumed it was salty due to the presence of ions, but I didn’t know what factors contributed to this state. I thought it was a reasonable question.
To paraphrase Dr McCoy: “Dammit Jim, I’m an ornithologist, not an oceanographer!”
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2000, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/24901/20 "2000-07-10T04:28:16Z")
You cannot possibly imagine how hard I had to contain myself to not post my thoughts in that thread. It does seem everybody else there has taken it with a straight face but give me a break… the OP in that thread is “how come all the fresh water from the rivers has not diluted the water in the sea to the point where it is not salty?”
Maybe I’m missing something…
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