Man, this happened to me so often when I worked in customer service:
Me [holding up two cups]: This is the large size, and this is the small.
Customer: What’s the difference?
Me [holding up two muffins]: This one has raisins, and this one has blueberries.
Customer: What’s the difference?
My cousin, also a Spaniard, spent several summers working as a Camp Monitor in the States.
The first year was also the first year that camp had international monitors. They asked them to tell jokes. After racking his brain for a while, Cousin came up with one he thought would translate well.
See, at this point my cousin got interrupted by people who claimed that his joke was racist because it separated black and white. RIIIIIIITE. Well, it is racist in a way… keep on reading, please.
So it’s a joke about a “country guy” pulling a city guy’s leg… but sheesh, apparently in Missouri you can’t mention the color of sheep without offending someone 
(I’m sure not everybody in Missouri is a complete idiot)
That’s not stupidity on the part of the intern; it’s ignorance from having been raised with a lot of privilege. My boyfriend was raised in a household with servants, where even minor chores were done by someone other than him. When he came to the US to go to grad school, he had problems learning how to do things like wash his laundry, wash dishes, and do basic survival, ramen-noodles-with-frozen-veggies-level cooking.
When he was 30, I taught him how to put a screw into a wall. He’d never held a screwdriver in his hand before that, because he’d never had to assemble or fix anything in his life, ever. I assume that there are some major bluebloods in the US who can go through their formative years without ever having to learn to change a light bulb.
Paris Hilton not knowing what a Wal-Mart was comes to mind. :rolleyes: 
“What do they sell there? Walls?”
And wasn’t there some big-name politico who’d never seen a checkout scanner in operation?
(suggested responses)
You: Large is 30c extra. What size would you like?
You: Blueberry’s 1.35 each, raisin’s 1.20. What kind would you like?
I’m sure there have been plenty of big-name politicos who had never seen a checkout scanner in operation. Abraham Lincoln comes to mind.
But what you’re thinking of is the uproar that came back in '92 when President Bush had a photo-op at a grocery store in which he was marveling over the technology of a checkout scanner. This fell right into the attack pattern Bush’s opponents were already using against him - that he was a patrician with no real connection to regular people after spending 12 years as either Vice-President or President.
The fact that the scanner was actually a more advanced scanner than most grocery stores actually used, and that most news reports categorized Bush’s expression as more ‘polite boredom’ than ‘amazement’ got glossed over somehow.
Cite: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/bushscan.htm
Also, Egypt and the United States were definitely part of Europe at one point.
Millions of years ago, before the continents drifted apart.
But they were definitely part of Europe back then. Isn’t the fit obvious?
I was gonna say “Woodrow Wilson”, but yeah, you beat me to the joke.
See, I wrote “Europe” that way for a reason (with the “”-things that I can never remember what are called. We call them gooseeyes). Europe isn’t a fixed unit, it’s not a country, and its never, ever, been defined by politics or culture, EU or no EU (Yes, I’ll even argue that “North America” was part of “Europe” at some point.) I’ll be happy to discuss this with you in another thread, if you start it. I’m in a good mood today.
My point was simply that the woman may have been, and probably was, incredibly stupid, but that each of those statements, isolated, could be explained as simple misunderstandings and/or ignorance. Not knowing something does not make you stupid. Not wanting to learn does.
Thank you! not what I meant, but that made me smile.
I run roleplaying at my school and a couple of times the History Department have asked me to roleplay a historical character by answering pupil questions.
I did OK on William the Conquerer.
However there was a slight mixup when I was asked to play Martin Luther and came prepared with stuff like the ‘I have a dream’ speech! :eek: 
Pochacco is either saying that Bernoulli’s Priciple doesn’t cause a plane to fly, it just explains how it does fly, or that Bernoulli’s Priciple is based on too many assumptions for it to apply in real life.
Both things are pretty much true.
Yeah, but even if you’ve never changed one on your own, it’s not exactly hard to figure out on your own. I still call “stupid” on needing someone to show her how to do it.
My father was workkamping in Alaska a few summers back. You would not believe the lulus he got.
“Do you take American money?”
“Where do they keep the Eskimos?”
“Is the zoo nearby? We want to see the mammoths.”
Unless I’m mistaken, Egypt and the US were part of Pangea, not Europe.
“In the zoo, next to the mammoths.”
A few nights ago, some friends and I were talking about movies. One person - who is quite intelligent, normally - mentioned a movie that freaked her out because it had a “giant, life-sized termite.”
I don’t think it’s stupid at all to ask someone to help you change a light bulb, or show you how to change a light bulb, if you’ve never had to do it before. You and I consider it common knowledge that lightbulbs have screw threads at the base, which match up with screw threads in the socket. That’s hardly intuitive, though, since the base of the lightbulb is hidden inside the socket, which, from the outside, looks like a metal cylinder, if you can see it at all. I could imagine someone thinking that you could pull a light bulb straight out of that cylinder, or that there might be little clips inside the cylinder holding the light bulb in place.
And even if you did know that light bulbs screw into light fixtures, if you don’t know the “righty tighty, lefty loosey” rule, you wouldn’t know which way to turn the bulb to remove it. Applying too much force in the wrong direction could break the bulb, which could send bits of glass or metal into your skin. On the other hand, applying too little force in the right direction would leave the bulb in place. If the light bulb sticks even a little bit in the socket, you’re going to have to apply a bit more force at first to get it out. On the other hand, the fact that the light bulb isn’t turning when you first try to twist the glass part might mean you’re turning the wrong way. So, if you’d never changed a bulb before, how would you know when you’re applying the right amount of force in the right direction, unless someone helped you learn?
There’s also the fact that light bulbs heat up when they’re used. If you’ve never changed a light bulb before, you don’t know how long it takes a bulb to cool down.
Besides, it might take you several minutes of messing around with the light to figure out how to change the bulb. That time might be better spent doing other things, so it might make sense to just ask someone to help you do it.
Apparently he’s not aware of the existence of Biblical Proof of UFOs! The group takes its name from such conjectures as the ones about the wheel Ezekiel saw.
When we lived in Hawaii, we made a point to visit the islands other that Oahu, where we lived. While we were on Maui, we went horseback riding. It was a tourist gig, of course, and we were the only people on the ride who lived in Hawaii. One guy saw some sort of bush he was convinced was a “pineapple tree”. The tour guide tried very hard to convice this guy that pineapples didn’t grow on trees, but on low-growing plants, one pineapple to a plant. The tourist got all offended: “I know you are just trying to make a fool of a white guy! Of course pineapples grow on trees - why do you think they call them ‘apples’? You’re just trying to make me look dumb!” Mr. SCL and I just sat there on our horses and sadly shook our heads at each other.