# What's the dumbest question you've ever been asked? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 3, 2017, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054 "2017-06-03T23:16:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/181 "2017-06-07T17:46:39Z")
> [@TheMysteryWriter](#): > > …In general stupid seems to mean, “that person doesn’t know something that I know, something that seems obvious to me.” Well said. There are many genuinely stupid questions described in this thread. But there are almost as many odd examples that leave me scratching my head, where the claimed “stupidity” is attributable to factual (and sometimes arcane) contingent knowledge that depend upon experience and familiarity, not common sense. I’m often surprised at how bad many people are at seeing things from the perspective of somebody who may just have different experience and knowledge. I guess that’s why good teaching skills are rather rare and valuable. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/182 "2017-06-07T17:49:56Z")
> [@Drummond\_Bays](#): > > There was an old battleaxe of a woman who lived across from my parents, went by the nickname ‘DoDo.’ Thicker than a bootheel and twice as dense… > > Anyway, a Greek family with a dog moved in across the street, and naturally, they spoke to the dog in Greek. With a stupid smile she pipes up: > > ‘How is the dog going to understand them if they’re speaking another language?!?!?!’ > > …‘DoDo,’ indeed. A public speaker once said something to that effect, “That dog does not understand SPANISH!” To be fair, though, the speaker knew full well his fallacy and was poking fun at himself in his speech. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/183 "2017-06-07T17:54:03Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Talking with an anti-abortion protester about adoption, which he was okay with except for gay people adopting. > > Me: So if a lesbian got pregnant, what should she do? > **Him: How does a lesbian get pregnant?** > > Uh, a grown men who doesn’t know how women get pregnant? Again - I don’t think his question was stupid, just incompletely stated. \*\*\*“Assuming that a lesbian only has lesbian sex, how does a lesbian get pregnant?” \*\*\*(Not taking into account such things as rape, in vitro fertilization, or reluctant-but-consensual sex with a man.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/184 "2017-06-07T18:40:21Z")
Someone upthread said that teachers probably get the most stupid questions. But it’s not quite that simple. In order to be successful as a teacher, you have to understand that the questions aren’t actually stupid. Usually, they’re either hasty (like the braille-sign language one), or the questioner meant to ask something different from what you heard them asking. We all ask hasty questions sometimes, and the motivation is usually from trying to be polite, so it’s hard to see those as stupid. And for the second category, the correct response is to try to figure out what the questioner is actually asking (which might involve asking them a follow-up question). You have to be able to get into the questioner’s head, and once you’re in there, the question often doesn’t seem stupid at all. For instance, if I were asked “how big is a 16” pizza?", my answer would have been something like “About enough for four people”, since that’s probably what the questioner meant. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/185 "2017-06-07T18:59:25Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > MD assigned by Hospital - I was admitted with a pulse of 37.1. > > I have a life-long resolution that I will not linger or suffer - I will die by my own hand if necessary. > > The “life-long” and “if necessary” keep getting missed - I was held on a “Psych Hold” because I could imagine checking myself out. > After I sent the (City) police home, they decided that maybe the cops knew something they had missed. Duh. > > The young MD probably had never had a patient who actually had thought about suicide, hence the silly question. > > Exactly HOW did she think I would respond? Still not sure how it’s a dumb question. Tactless maybe, but not dumb. It’s her objective to keep you from attempting suicide, if possible. Q: How would you kill yourself? A: Swallow a bunch of pills. (MD contacts family member, recommends they empty your medicine cabinet) A: Shoot myself. (MD contacts family member, recommends they rid your home of guns) A: Slice my wrists. (MD contacts family member, recommends they rid your home of sharp objects) ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/186 "2017-06-07T19:23:12Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > 10th grade. I’d just moved to Florida from the UK. “What language do you guys speak in England?” I know this one…Englandish, right? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/187 "2017-06-07T19:27:28Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Still not sure how it’s a dumb question. Tactless maybe, but not dumb. It’s her objective to keep you from attempting suicide, if possible… I doubt that the primary intent of the question was to forestall some particular method by physically preventing it. More that if somebody responds in _any_ way that they have considered specific methods, that indicates a level of suicidal ideation that is a stage beyond just vaguely thinking that you’re fed up with life. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/188 "2017-06-07T19:49:57Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Indeed. Zero is a weird number, so I would not assume that’s it’s either even or odd. There’s really nothing “stupid” about that question that I see (although, yes, I know it’s even, but if I were presented the question without knowing this fact beforehand, while I could not find a reasoning for it being “odd,” I could see it being an exception and being simply “neither” or “undefined.”) I agree entirely, speaking as a professional computer programmer of 20+ years experience. If you ask the average person to name all the even numbers, odds are very good they will say “2, 4, 6, 8…”. Are they wrong for skipping zero? And with some knowledge of math might come the fact that 1 is neither prime nor composite, which doesn’t sound too dissimilar to “zero is neither even nor odd”. Again, it comes down to context. I can certainly imagine assignments in which I’m supopsed to write a program to read an inputted number and then report if the number inputted is even or odd in which I’d definitely want to clarify what the range of expected inputs is, etc. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/189 "2017-06-07T21:20:37Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > So the boyfriend figures if he can project behavior onto REM that she might otherwise find taboo, he might be able to change her worldview. By “outside marriage” let’s assume you mean “premarital” rather than “extramarital.” So he asks the question to get her thinking that, yeah, these REM guys probably did that! So I guess it’s OK if I bonk my boyfriend. This was it exactly. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/190 "2017-06-07T22:10:09Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Still not sure how it’s a dumb question. Tactless maybe, but not dumb. It’s her objective to keep you from attempting suicide, if possible. > > Q: How would you kill yourself? > A: Swallow a bunch of pills. (MD contacts family member, recommends they empty your medicine cabinet) > A: Shoot myself. (MD contacts family member, recommends they rid your home of guns) > A: Slice my wrists. (MD contacts family member, recommends they rid your home of sharp objects) Actually, they did have (life-long trauma patient) roomie destroy pain pills - including a trans-dermal formulation. I am damned near immune to CNS depressants - it would take a large dose of barbiturates to kill me. They knew this - it is all over my records - and this was the same group - both UCD - the clinic maintains the records, and the hospital had me. I didn’t mention pills (I had morphine for pain) or firearms - they went bananas over the “drive my truck into a bridge pier” - roomie couldn’t very well destroy the truck. Actually a 4" barrel inserted into the mouth will be aimed at the medulla - the monkey brain which runs the autonomic nervous system (it is this thing that a blow to the back of the skull addresses). Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge is now a bit of a two-stage proposition - there is now (I have not seen it) net under the bridge to catch jumpers - so bring wire cutters to go through the net. Or just go up to Mt/ Tam and jump. Or Land’s End - if you go off the path, there are some fantastic cliffs. Or - show the SF-Oakland Bridge some love - everybody uses the GGB (and always: South Tower, facing the city. Use the North tower, face the ocean. How does one rid a 4/2 of “sharp objects”? I take a hammer to a window - instant “sharp objects”. Open cutlery drawer - I do like to chop fresh foodstuffs - do we destroy the multi-hundred dollars cutlery? Just imagine “suicide-proofing” a house. Or a city. Or a road. The “fail” would be amazing. They actually tried to make an issue that I actually drive! At the ripe old age of 67! ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/191 "2017-06-07T23:10:41Z")
Well, that was a rather detailed answer to the question, so maybe it wasn’t so dumb after all. This is officially the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2017, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/192 "2017-06-07T23:22:38Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Well, that was a rather detailed answer to the question, so maybe it wasn’t so dumb after all… No kidding. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/193 "2017-06-08T00:05:42Z")
> [@Modesty\_Blaise](#): > > Me answering the phone: Hello > Them: Is that you? Back before the days of CID, there were a few times that I answered the phone and got “Who is this?” While not a stupid question, as such, it always annoyed the hell out of me. My preferred response was \. ---
**Author:** ![Jaguars](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaguars/32/5879_2.png) [@Jaguars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaguars)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/194 "2017-06-08T00:28:11Z")
“Is divided by the opposite of times?” It was a guy in his 20s working as my chainman (surveyor’s assistant). I’d been talking about all the maths I’d do while waiting for him to walk from one measurment to the next. He was unusually quiet for the rest of the job then he busted that one out. Dude wasn’t smart, but in general he wasn’t _that_ stupid. Had to feel sorry for him because he must have just fallen behind in maths early on and no one gave a shit enough to help him work through it. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/195 "2017-06-08T00:40:05Z")
> [@dude\_robert](#): > > I don’t get it? Are mai tais extraordinarily expensive or something? They require the “fully-stocked bar” to have fresh fruit. “Fully-stocked” bars may be able to make a lot of drinks, but there still may be a few things they aren’t prepared for, such as ice cream drinks, like a brandy Alexander (although they might make you one with cream instead of ice cream). If mai tais were a common order, then the bar would probably be prepared for them-- people order them a lot in Hawaii, so bars there keep the fruit for them on hand, but if they get ordered once a month or less, a bar, even a fully-stocked one, is unlikely to keep fresh pineapple. > [@Riemann](#): > > The common sense interpretation of that statement is that you wrongly think days are shorter when summer comes around, relative to the length of days in winter. > > But I think perhaps you know that. That doesn’t make other people dumb. It just makes you worthy of a handectomy. It made perfect sense to me. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > 10th grade. I’d just moved to Florida from the UK. “What language do you guys speak in England?” At my high school, a student moved in from South Africa, and the counselor put her into remedial English, because she was from Africa-- they don’t speak English there, right? > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I agree entirely, speaking as a professional computer programmer of 20+ years experience. If you ask the average person to name all the even numbers, odds are very good they will say “2, 4, 6, 8…”. Are they wrong for skipping zero? And with some knowledge of math might come the fact that 1 is neither prime nor composite, which doesn’t sound too dissimilar to “zero is neither even nor odd”. > > Again, it comes down to context. I can certainly imagine assignments in which I’m supopsed to write a program to read an inputted number and then report if the number inputted is even or odd in which I’d definitely want to clarify what the range of expected inputs is, etc. I once pointed out to a teacher that if I had zero of something, and I could give equal parts of my zero amount to myself, and someone else, so zero was even. I got told I was wrong, and zero is neither even nor uneven, because you can’t divide zero, period. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/196 "2017-06-08T01:31:24Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Maybe you don’t see why we don’t understand. To me, that question is just as sensible as saying, “Do think think any of the guys on the Boston Red Sox are vegan?” > > …And at first I really wanted to know but this is getting to be too much work. Well, I can hazard a guess, if it helps. I believe Michael Stipe is gay. I’m not sure about other members of REM. The dolphin question reminds me of something I asked my husband. Not actually stupid, but as we lay quietly in bed, I blurted out, “What was it like for the first monkey in space?” ---
**Author:** ![Drummond\_Bays](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@Drummond\_Bays](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drummond_Bays)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/197 "2017-06-08T01:44:10Z")
Odd numbers were always my favourite growing up, because they were the superior numbers in my mind. /5-year-old logic Odd numbers can do what even numbers can’t! When adding or subtracting, even numbers can never make an odd, whereas odds make an even to show it who’s boss, then go back to being odd again. Therefore, zero is an even number. /5-year-old logic This was before I had discovered such complexities as division, of course! ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/198 "2017-06-08T02:22:33Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Well, I can hazard a guess, if it helps. I believe Michael Stipe is gay. I’m not sure about other members of REM. Stipe swings both ways. Last I heard, he’s been in a relationship with a man, who is not a public figure and has been referred to as “The Mister”, for 20-plus years. We didn’t know this at the time. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/199 "2017-06-08T02:28:21Z")
> [@Drummond\_Bays](#): > > Odd numbers can do what even numbers can’t! When adding or subtracting, even numbers can never make an odd, whereas odds make an even to show it who’s boss, then go back to being odd again. Not quite. [ul][li]the sum of any number of even numbers is always even.[/li][li]the sum of one or more even numbers plus an odd number will be odd[/li][li]the sum of two odd numbers will be even: it takes an odd number of odd numbers to get an odd sum[/li][li]multiplying odd numbers together gives you an odd product, but let one even number get in there and it will be even[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Annoying\_Buzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Annoying\_Buzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annoying_Buzz)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054/200 "2017-06-08T08:58:13Z")
Are you a Sagittarius? Stupid, because it was her 14th guess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-question-youve-ever-been-asked/788054.md?page=11)