Oh, I'm hopeless at....
maths. Announced to all within earshot in a laughingly dismissive manner. Well, you should be fucking cringingly embarrased by that admission if it means you can't do a bit of simple bloody arithmetic. Would you admit that you couldn't read, with such beaming pride? No one expects you to be doing path integrals in your head or proving that all the zeros are on the critical line. Adding up the price of items on a shopping list or dividing a restaurant bill shouldn't be beyond you though. Fucking twats.

Oh, and students who don't do a stroke of academic work. Yes, I will give you a shit mark. Unhesitatingly. I've done it before and I'll do it again. Try me.

How have stupidity, ignorance and rampant underachievement become so celebrated?
(Dr. Scambolic, Mon 5 May 2008, 1:28, 3 replies)

Ever since school
I don't know when it started, but when I was at school clever kids had the piss taken out of them. I assume it was jealously.
Unfortunately such celebration of ignorance and petty pointless famous-for-being-famous stupid arse celebrities who are thick as fuck because they know it makes them popular and act dappy because it opens doors is no commonplace.
(tweebianmonkey Should be known as Widget, Mon 5 May 2008, 2:21, closed)

Every single time
someone asks me what I've been studying for the past 5 years, and I tell them it's maths, I get this exact same response. 'Ohh, I'm no good at maths me...' Then I invariably get told what grade they got at GCSE, for some reason. Like I give a shit?!
( St3cks, Mon 5 May 2008, 9:39, closed)

It's true that people no longer value academic achievement
But I think Maths is a special case - there is a kind of tacit agreement that the phrase 'well, nobody really likes maths' will get nods of agreement in most quarters, for no good reason. It's a double-edged sword. People feel no shame in their lack of numeracy, but conversely anyone who studies maths at any higher level is some kind of insane genius with no social skills (and they haven't even met any Trinity Mathmos, for whom this is very true).

I think it's partly the abstraction - people get unnerved
( Hampster Squared has stuff at www.tilla.co.uk, Mon 5 May 2008, 10:16, closed)