# What are the dumbest questions you've been asked more than once? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 6, 2019, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767 "2019-09-06T01:47:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/82 "2019-09-07T09:28:14Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > And why exactly is that a dumb question? I mean we do of course, but is that obvious. It always precedes US Thanksgiving by exactly 45 days, incidentally. > > The dumbest question I got asked more times than I can count is, “Is this going to be on the exam?” I always say that it might be. Even dumber, “What will be on the exam?” “Everything we did.” I usually asked; “Is it going to be a comprehensive final, or is comprehension not required?” ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/83 "2019-09-07T09:36:23Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > Being from the Netherlands: “ Did you drive here?” > And of course: “did you ever stick your finger in a/the dike?” Surprisingly not all of those were people thinking they were being clever or original with a homonym. I’m sorry you get asked about the dike. But I don’t understand the problem with the driving question. I live in England and have played chess many times in the Hoogovens chess tournament at Wijk aan Zee (now sponsored by Tata Steel.) For the first few years, we did drive there (taking a car ferry to France.) Of course now you can use the Channel Tunnel - so it’s certainly possible to sit in a car for the whole journey. You may be amused by an anecdote about the time I stayed with a charming Dutch family at the chess tournament. I had got a train from Amsterdam to Beverwijk and noticed in a railway map that there was a station at Schevenigen. Well this is also a chess opening in the Sicilian Defence. So I tried to make conversation with the family (being Dutch, they all spoke English perfectly 🆒 ), telling them about the town. It took several goes before they realised what I was talking about, aince I couldn’t manage the throat noise you chaps use and was pronouncing the name as ‘shev -in -gen’! ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/84 "2019-09-07T11:41:12Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Depending on how the question, asking whether a blank input should be treated like an even-lengthed input is a fair question. I’ve done lots of stuff where blank/zero inputs are treated special. > > Asking whether zero is an even number is a mixed up way to ask that question, but it’s still a fair question. You’re overthinking this. It _really_ was as simple as knowing whether zero is even or not. And the issue isn’t whether the question is “fair” or not. “Is zero even?” is a mildly dumb question for a 10 year old to ask. For a 20+ year old Computer Science major? It’s quite a ways up the scale. Asking “What was President Lincoln’s first name?” is a fair question. But it’s a quite dumb one for adults in the US and a seriously dumb one for a college student majoring in US history. I have mentioned this stupidity several times here over the years. And people somehow want to defend this dumbness. It is getting really … weird … in this regard. But I shan’t speculate. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/85 "2019-09-07T13:44:45Z")
> [@glee](#): > > I’m sorry you get asked about the dike. > > But I don’t understand the problem with the driving question. > I live in England and have played chess many times in the Hoogovens chess tournament at Wijk aan Zee (now sponsored by Tata Steel.) > For the first few years, we did drive there (taking a car ferry to France.) > Of course now you can use the Channel Tunnel - so it’s certainly possible to sit in a car for the whole journey. **Isosleepy’s** location is in Pittsburgh. People ask him if he drove there from the Netherlands. So, yes, that is a rather silly question, until that trans-Atlantic highway ever gets built. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/86 "2019-09-07T14:41:30Z")
> [@Geek\_Mecha](#): > > Not a dumb question if they think you might be forwarding your calls. Right. I can take calls to my desk phone from my cell. I don’t, because that might encourage people to call me. But it’s not new technology. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/87 "2019-09-07T14:41:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Nevertheless both my mother and I (at separate times) have asked a cancer specialist that very question. > > In each case the specialist took us seriously and answered us politely. Again, I’m not a medical doctor. As I already posted, > [@](#): > > The OP asks for the dumbest questions \*\*[I’ve] \*\*been asked more than once. **I am not a doctor;** I am a person who had cancer. (Bolding added for emphasis.) To elaborate: Me: “I had cancer” (in conversational context). Yutz: “Did they get it all?” ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/88 "2019-09-07T14:45:36Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > Because heavy items with handles are more comfortable to be carried by the handle instead of by a plastic bag? Yet I can schlep many gallons of milk at once if they’re in bags. Not many if they’re not. This was more of an issue when my parking spot was a long way from my apartment. You could carry all your small items separately too and not have to deal with a heavy bag or waste a bag. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/89 "2019-09-07T15:56:24Z")
A couple from my college bookstore days: “Where are the blue books?” Usually asked within five feet of the large blue book display, right under the big “BLUE BOOKS” sign hanging from the ceiling. (My guess was that a significant portion of the people asking had no idea what a “blue book” was, they were just told in a class that they needed to go buy one at the bookstore for an upcoming exam.) More than once I had a college girl come up to me with an article of clothing in her hand and ask me “If you were a guy, would you wear this?” (Hint: the dumb part of the question wasn’t the “would you wear this” part.) ---
**Author:** ![KMS94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ad7895/32.png) [@KMS94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KMS94)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/90 "2019-09-07T16:23:32Z")
I spent many years working in a small coastal town that had a nice little harbor, with many moored boats. Twice, I was asked by tourists how we keep all the moored boats pointing in the same direction. The harbor master would quip, “we have a guy that takes care of that.” 😃 Also, in Maine, if you harvest a deer, moose or bear during hunting season, you have to take it to the closest available place to have it “tagged” by a state agent. These are usually general stores, outdoor-supply stores or the like. These places are given yellow, state issued signs designating these places as “Game Inspection Stations” and are how the state tracks the annual harvests. One local shopkeeper, known for his smart-assery, would answer the inevitable question from unsuspecting tourists, “What’s a Game Inspection Station?” with a standard answer of, “See, you bring in your Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, Parcheesi, whatever, and we’ll go through it and make sure you have all the cards, money, dice, little dog piece, top hat, car, whatever…” This was also a place where the local lobster fishermen hung out, so there was usually an audience. If you were lucky enough to be in the store when one of these exchanges took place, you’d have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing out loud, he was very convincing and serious. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/91 "2019-09-07T19:22:30Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I have mentioned this stupidity several times here over the years. And people somehow want to defend this dumbness. It is getting really … weird … in this regard. But I shan’t speculate. It’s an arbitrary set with some made up definition that could easily have included or not included zero, it could have excluded negative numbers, etc. If someone had asked me to provide the definition for the following things, i would have failed at all of them: 1 - Whole numbers 2 - Natural numbers 3 - Even numbers ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/92 "2019-09-07T20:08:15Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > It’s an arbitrary set with some made up definition that could easily have included or not included zero, it could have excluded negative numbers, etc. > > If someone had asked me to provide the definition for the following things, i would have failed at all of them: > 1 - Whole numbers > 2 - Natural numbers > 3 - Even numbers Again, you do _not_ know the actual questions used and are purely _guessing_ to come up with a excuse that is still very, very inadequate. Binary numbers and parity are _very_ important in Computer Science. If you don’t know that zero is even you are in deep, deep trouble. It’s like not knowing the atomic number of hydrogen when you’re an upper division Chemistry major. Hardly obscure trivia. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/93 "2019-09-07T20:51:32Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > I have a co-worker that has a desk right next to mine. We share a phone. We have very different responsibilities. His subordinates are always walking up to our area and not seeing Ted, they ask me “Where’s Ted?”. Not to mention that, if you sit near the copying machine, everyone assumes you know how to fix it. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/94 "2019-09-07T23:02:42Z")
More of a comment than a question, but … I used to have a beautiful Dalmatian that was born deaf. She was a beautiful dog, a liver spot with bright blue eyes. I trained her with hand signals (I also had a Lab that I was training for obedience competition, so it wasn’t as hard as it might have been). Tess was sharp, and was almost always focused on me. Even out and about off lead she’d keep checking in and looking for/at me and she happy a _really_ good recall on her. Inevitably someone would watch Tess look at me, me give her a Come Here hand signal, watch her come barreling at me, and say “Wow, she does so well for being blind! ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/95 "2019-09-07T23:34:38Z")
When I was a teenager, it was “are you girl?” I was shy, and polite, so I never answered “ask your wife.” ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/96 "2019-09-08T00:48:52Z")
From my public library days: “Is the copier working?”, while looking right at a copier with an out of order sign. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/97 "2019-09-08T02:28:54Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It used to be the stupidest question I’d been asked, but now I can say I’ve been asked it more than twice. > > At the end of a lengthy conversation in English, “do you speak English?” No, hon, for the last half-hour we’ve been conversing in Quenya… Actually the stupidest question would be for them to shout, "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH???’ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/98 "2019-09-08T02:31:49Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Asking “What was President Lincoln’s first name?” is a fair question. But it’s a quite dumb one for adults in the US and a seriously dumb one for a college student majoring in US history. I had a co-worker once ask me which came first, the American Revolution or the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/99 "2019-09-08T02:36:48Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > I have a co-worker that has a desk right next to mine. We share a phone. We have very different responsibilities. His subordinates are always walking up to our area and not seeing Ted, they ask me “Where’s Ted?” > > I try to be cool about it but I am getting increasingly sarcastic in my response. I have no idea what Ted is doing or where he is. My usual response is to slowly (and pointedly) look around and say “I don’t see him.” Some of the people that have been around a while have caught on but there is so much churn that there are always new people that think my job is to keep track of where “Ted” is. Sadly a lot of higher ups have the same notion and I have to act like I normally keep track of him but am not sure at the moment. > > Not a big deal but after the 10,000th time it gets old. I can see their point. As somebody who works near Ted, you’re a likely source for information about him. And if they’re at Ted’s desk, you’re likely to be nearby. I’ll grant that the more accurate question would be “Do you know where Ted is and, if so, where is he?” but I think “Where’s Ted?” is an inevitable conversational shortcut. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/100 "2019-09-08T02:42:02Z")
> [@glee](#): > > I’m sorry you get irritated by that question. > > I don’t know whether you think it’s obvious your birthday differs or not. (I’m guessing you think it is.) Of course it’s obvious. With the exception of people born on February 29th whose original birth date only exists 25% of the time, no one’s birth date varies from year to year. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2019, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767/101 "2019-09-08T02:49:50Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Being born on Christmas must suck since you don’t get two sets of presents. I know you’re joking, but my brother in law was born on Christmas Eve, and I always make a point of getting him two presents. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-dumbest-questions-youve-been-asked-more-than-once/839767.md?page=6)