I have a female coworker that yesterday asked another coworker what the difference was between a chicken, rooster and hen.
I was a little surprised. She’s 31 or 32 and a college graduate. Funny thing is she’s from Kentucky too.
Earlier in the year I was making a cardboard periscope to show my students and she asked what I was making so I told her and she asked “What’s a periscope?”
I had another coworker that didn’t know female lions are the ones without manes. She thought they all had manes.
So what I want to hear is just how weird was this? I mean my jaw didn’t hit the floor and I didn’t want to be rude and say “You really should have learned this stuff somewhere before now, be it a Sherman & Peabody cartoon or whatever.”
I would also like to hear your stories of times when someone didn’t know something that most kids in elementary school know.
[quote]on edge wrote:
Whew, at least I know who Sherman and Peabody are.
[/quote]
I remembered who they were as a pair. But I had to research to remind myself which one was Sherman and which one was Peabody.
[quote]Nards wrote:
I have a female coworker that yesterday asked another coworker what the difference was between a chicken, rooster and hen.
I was a little surprised. She’s 31 or 32 and a college graduate. Funny thing is she’s from Kentucky too.
Earlier in the year I was making a cardboard periscope to show my students and she asked what I was making so I told her and she asked “What’s a periscope?”
I had another coworker that didn’t know female lions are the ones without manes. She thought they all had manes.
So what I want to hear is just how weird was this? I mean my jaw didn’t hit the floor and I didn’t want to be rude and say “You really should have learned this stuff somewhere before now, be it a Sherman & Peabody cartoon or whatever.”
I would also like to hear your stories of times when someone didn’t know something that most kids in elementary school know.
[/quote]
My boy is in Kindergarten. I am quite certain his jaw would have dropped in each of those circumstances.
I’ve had to explain to a coworker that there were no Polar Bears at the South Pole. I don’t think she believed me. I think I had more success explaining Koalas were not bears.
I’ve had to explain what a Blowjob was to the same girl. She asked. After ensuring there were plenty of witnesses to her saying “Yes she really didn’t know and wanted to know” I told her in some detail. Just to be fair I threw in a description of cunnilingus as well. She came back next day to say she told her husband about it and he wanted to know why anyone would want either.
When I was in uni, my classmates were talking about disgusting foods, one of them were talking about a tribe somewhere that likes to eat placenta. I told them that that’s nothing, I eat them sometimes too. It wasn’t until my wife gave birth to my first daughter that I know what placenta was. All those times I thought placenta was polenta.
My wife thought fiber was water until quite recently. She was complaining about constipation so I told her to get more fiber and she said she already consume like 2 liters of them everyday.
[quote]MartyMonster wrote:
I’ve had to explain what a Blowjob was to the same girl. She asked. After ensuring there were plenty of witnesses to her saying “Yes she really didn’t know and wanted to know” I told her in some detail. Just to be fair I threw in a description of cunnilingus as well. She came back next day to say she told her husband about it and he wanted to know why anyone would want either.
I used to work with a woman who was not particularly wise about the world. Given that the team we were on was international, there was ample opportunity for her to put her ignorance on full display. Here’s some of her gems.
White South African Co-Worker: “My wife is Afrikaans”.
Unwise Woman: “She don’t look African.”
Unwise woman: “What do you call it when one band plays a song that another band wrote?”
Me: “A cover.”
Unwise woman: “No, that’s not it. I’m talking about playing a song that they didn’t originally write.”
Me: “I dunno. A re-sing?”
Unwise woman: “Yeah, that’s it. A re-sing.”
Unwise woman: “I never understood why they called you people Indians when we already have Indians here.”
My brother’s wife was the victim of a cruel “hoax” as a child (when she was 5 or 6 years old, her mother told her that tapioca pudding was full of fish eggs)…only her mother forgot to tell her that she was just kidding, so she went on believing this for about ten years. One day in high school, she told one of her friends who was eating tapioca pudding that she was eating fish eggs. Whoops.
MartyMonster, I like your anecdotes explaining that there are no polar bears at the South Pole, and that koalas are not bears.
I’m not sure what I think re: periscope. I knew what a periscope was as a little kid because I was fascinated all things nautical and aviation-related as a kid, and I could name every significant fighter, bomber, and ship used in World War II…but it does occur to me that someone who has never been exposed to much discussion of aviation or seafaring might not know what a periscope is. Heck, I bet most people don’t know which side is “starboard” and which side is “port” or maybe not even the difference between fore and aft.
[quote]twojarslave wrote:
Unwise woman: “I never understood why they called you people Indians when we already have Indians here.”
Unwise woman: “Orientals make good programmers.”[/quote]
I briefly dated a girl whose mother made comments very similar to this. I was never sure there were derived from ignorance, racism, or a little of both.
[quote]twojarslave wrote:
Unwise woman: “I never understood why they called you people Indians when we already have Indians here.”
Unwise woman: “Orientals make good programmers.”[/quote]
I briefly dated a girl whose mother made comments very similar to this. I was never sure there were derived from ignorance, racism, or a little of both.
[/quote]
She meant well. She was just not very bright and very, very southern. Ignorance and generations of racism probably caused her to have no conception of how others would perceive her statements.
[quote]twojarslave wrote:
… very, very southern. Ignorance and generations of racism probably caused her to have no conception of how others would perceive her statements.
[/quote]
I’m not sure I know how to perceive your statements.
[quote]twojarslave wrote:
… very, very southern. Ignorance and generations of racism probably caused her to have no conception of how others would perceive her statements.
[/quote]
I’m not sure I know how to perceive your statements.[/quote]
Unfairly biased against southerners would be a fair perception of my statement, I suppose.
[quote]twojarslave wrote:
… very, very southern. Ignorance and generations of racism probably caused her to have no conception of how others would perceive her statements.
[/quote]
I’m not sure I know how to perceive your statements.[/quote]
sounds like someone that should know things about people in the south
[quote]MartyMonster wrote:
I’ve had to explain what a Blowjob was to the same girl. She asked. After ensuring there were plenty of witnesses to her saying “Yes she really didn’t know and wanted to know” I told her in some detail. Just to be fair I threw in a description of cunnilingus as well. She came back next day to say she told her husband about it and he wanted to know why anyone would want either.
[/quote]
WTF
There really are people in the world like that?
Okay how old was she? [/quote]
About 30. An intelligent women as well. But she was just so sweet and innocent that you could catch diabetes from a conversation with her. Apparently her husband was not much better.
Ex rents “The Aviator”, as in, the Leonardo DiCaprio film based on Howard Hughes’ life, right? It has a picture of Leo and an airplane on the cover. We sit and watch the whole movie (I enjoyed it), at the end she says “What was that about? I thought there were supposed to be a bunch of blue people in it?”
