"Rakky, what's that big blue country on the map?"
"That's the Pacific Ocean, Claire..."


She was 27 years old at the time.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 18:08, Reply)

Ooh, ooh: Here's another
The other day I convinced my Lithuanian flatmate that porridge should always be kept in the freezer to avoid infestation by "Porridge worms".

P.S. He's in his second year of an MPhys...
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 18:08, 3 replies)

I'm a pretty open minded individual
and like to think (after many stumbles over life's ignorance-traps) that I've developed into a rational, reasonable person.

My local pub is filled with an assortment of characters that generally have me crying with laughter, but sometimes I just want to bang my head on the table, or smash a glass and slice off my ears so I don't have to listen to what's being discussed at that moment.

Previous gems have included:

Stopping "the war" by killing "them" and burying "them" covered in gammon (they, apparently, are everywhere too).

How "poofters" shouldn't "be allowed". Quite what they shouldn't be allowed to do, or whether it is their very right to existence that has been called into question is never quite clear.

Various sectarian gems and rangers-celtic based conspiracy theories that make the grassy knoll and the magic bullet theory seem plausible.

The most recent was a discussion on Lady Gaga, self proclaimed pop royalty and erstwhile sausage-smuggler, apparently.

"I'd give that a burl! Phwoar!"
"She's got a cock, but."
"What?"
"A cock, Aye."
"What.... she's a man? Fuck off!"
"Naw, she's no a man, she's no a woman either. She's a, what is it again, a her-mee-fra-dite. She's got baws and a fanny."
"What, a great big cock?"
"Naw, they've only got wee tiny ones, her-mee-fra-dites."
"Fuck, I must be one as well then!"

At that point I nearly choked on my pint. Sometimes ignorance can be genuinely hilarious :D
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 18:06, 1 reply)

Every exponent of "Intelligent design", anywhere, ever.

Intelligent design is the idea that biological organisms are too comlicated to have evolved on their own. Advocates of intelligent design say that the hand of God must be involved in the creation of species. They are wrong.

Detailed discussion in the replies. Warning: Looooong.

.
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 18:02, 20 replies)

I used to work with a girl
who thought that Manchester was in London.

What I really couldn't understand was that she loved Corrie and 'Stenders. How she thought both soaps were happening in the same town I don't know.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Thu 18 Mar 2010, 18:02, 1 reply)

Someone I know, a friend, honest. Not me, honest...
once dated a bloke who told her he didn't see the point to anal sex.

Talked yourself out of that one, pal.
( Sallyrsm, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 18:00, 3 replies)

basil brush
Back in the 70's I lived at a residential school for the deaf in Basingstoke, my dad was the caretaker. One of the delights was the teaching assistants from abroad who stayed for a term. At the weekend they were usually at a loose end in the first few weeks my dad was always inviting them round for tea on a Saturday and watching a bit of UK telly. One of these lovelies was Anna a really attractice blond from Gothenburg.She came round and she chatted with us about loads of things and she was very eager to learn all things about Britain. After tea we settled down to watch Basil Brush and we all laughed at his antics with Mr Roy reading the adventures of Bulldog Basil and funny interuptions etc etc. Afterward my dad asked if she enjoyed the show and she said she had enjoyed it very much, especially Basil as he was so funny and was she was amazed that there were such intelligent Foxes in England she had no idea that there were such creatures, they had no animals of any kind in Sweden who had their own television programmes that could talk....my mum broke it gently to her that it was apuppet and there was a hand stuffed up it arse. I am still Not convinced if she really got it.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:57, 2 replies)

One day in burger king
I was waiting for my whopper meal to arrive when a couple walked in who were, shall we say, not the brightest of specimens to grace this planet.The girl decided to be the ambassador of the couple. The conversation went as follows.
Girl." what do you want gary"
Garry. " burger or summatt"
Girl. " Do you do burgers?"
Assistant. " Yes" points at vast range available on signs behind counter
Mumbled conversation ensues between couple for next two minutes
Girl. " do you do fries?"
Assistant. "YES"
Another mumbled conversation follows. A good four minutes have now passed since they entered
Girl. " How long will it take for burger and fries?"
Assistant. " three minutes at the most"
Girl " Forget it, we aint got that long"
What a waste of organs!
(boarders You won't catch me with my trousers, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:55, 4 replies)

I once nearly bit through my arm in frustration...
..because I could not, and I mean COULD NOT, persuade my girlfriend at the time that - in fact, take a guess. Is the truth that:

1)I could not persuade her that she had to leave the handbrake on when she parked on the steep road outside my house, and that was why she kept finding her car 20 yards further down than she left it, often dangerously close to the junction. She didn't believe the handbrake did anything when the car was parked?

2)I could not persuade her that if I gave her £10, and she gave me £5, she would have gained the £5 that I owed her, in a remarkably similar if not identical manner to if I had merely given her £5. She thought I made a net gain from this transaction, because she was giving me money?

3)I could not persuade her that she should stop talking so loudly and volubly about sex, especially since she was still a virgin, especially in the vicinity of my parents. She didn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to join in?

The discussion about this subject went on for far too long, as I tried every logical convolution and approached the subject from every possible different angle that might finally get it into her thick, masonry-like skull. Eventually it became an argument, but not before I'd given myself massive bruising by biting down on my arm in frustration at the staggering, piss-drinking levels of gasping stupidity I was being subjected to. Eventually I threw my drink over her and walked out, taking both my money and hers...er whoops, guess that gave away the answer.

Actually, put like that, it makes me wonder who was really the stupider one. I should probably have given up long before. In my defence, I was 17 and have since grown up. Nonetheless, I blame that relationship for the abiding and horrifically sexist belief I hold to this day that women really, genuinely, don't do logic. At all.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:55, 8 replies)

Some fucking bumlord once tried to tell me
that David Bowie wasn't shit.



I know QOTW has a bad reputation for lie-telling but I swear as God is my witness this is a true story.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:54, 7 replies)

Nobody in my Critical Thinking AS level class knew what an armadillo was. Had they never seen the Dime ads?
On a university field trip (university), we were mapping the rock formations in some Spanish hills. We were put in pairs or small groups, and then dumped in the middle of nowhere with maps, compasses and a packed lunch, and were picked up again in the evening. (It really was in the middle of fuck-all, so if you needed a wee all you had to do was squat in the nearest obliging bush. I lost my outdoor-pooing virginity that trip.) As we explored the area we'd encounter other groups/pairs on the way, and we might compare info. My group met a pair of girls who were having trouble taking their readings. One of the things we had to do was dip and strike; I can't be arsed to explain all of it, but it does involve knowing which way is north. One of the girls was waving her compass around and saying 'but which way is north?' We told her to hold it flat and look which way the needle pointed. That just confused her even further: 'but when I turn around the needle moves!' Christ.
Summary: University student doesn't know how to use a compass.

Asked by someone in my Philosophy A level class: "Why doesn't all the water on the bottom of the Earth fall off?"
When I told the class the Reese Witherspoon joke ("Did you hear the news about that Hollywood actress who got stabbed? That blonde woman, whatsername... Reese something." "Witherspoon?" "No, with a knife!"), everybody laughed except her, who didn't get it and thought we were all being meanies for laughing at someone getting stabbed.

I did 9 months' work in a charity shop, so not exactly a strict interview process. One of the things we had to do at the end of the day was cashing up (exactly the same as paying in a personal cash deposti: count all your/the till's money and fill in a banking slip), which usually fell to whoever had been working the till. When we got a new person, a woman 10 years my senior who was studying business at college, the first time she did the banking she was concerned because we were 45p short: when she added up all the money with a calculator, it fell short of however much the till said we had. I had a look, and discovered that she was entering the sole 5p piece into the calculator as 0.5. After five minutes I had failed to persuade her that 0.5 is the same as 0.50, and that she needed to punch in 0.05. In the end she just took my word for it.
Summary: Grown woman can't grasp decimals.

I used to work at another job with a very thick girl. She had never heard of the Beatles. One day I came in wearing a Yellow Submarine tee, and she read it and said, "the beatless? What's that?"

A zoo-keeper giving us a talk about her fruit bats told us they were mammals. She asked the audience if anyone had thought they were birds, and three adults put their hands up.

My grandfather wrote 2 books but had never heard of algae.

I'll add more as I think of them. Edit: I don't want this to be obnoxiously long, so I'll put more in the replies.
( Bob Todd whee, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:53, 3 replies)

Zebra
according to my cousin a zebra is not the same as a zeeeeebra (american pronounciation)
they are two different animals.
though she has never explained what this "other zebra" actually is.
(chibs, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:52, 4 replies)

Oh god
Woman I knew at uni: "Don't be stupid, how can a woman masturbate?"
(Wong Fei-Hung - now with added flickr.com (see profile), Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:51, 4 replies)

someone I worked with:
"Hitler...isn't he the guy who burned books?"

yes, amongst other things
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:47, Reply)

My lodger - part three
He also believes that Maggie Thatcher was a saint who did nothing but good for the UK.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:44, 3 replies)

Women's breasts grow bigger when men feel them.
So when you see a woman with large breasts, you can tell she has lots of sexual experience.

That's what the former Mr Quar disclosed to me in his mid-20s.

I laughed solidly for about a week at that, especially as he was a science teacher at the time, regularly delivering sex education.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:44, 11 replies)

I could get a tan
My ex-lodger (a friend of mine for over 30 years) thought that you could get a tan by just getting hot. The sun just wasn't involved.

I found out about this when we were in a jacuzzi at the local sports centre, i.e. indoors, in winter, at night. The water was rather warm and he suddenly announced, "blimey this is hot, I could get a tan!"

Never mind that he never got tanned when the heating was on too high or that when he did get tanned it would stop at his clothing.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:42, Reply)

I will always remember
the, who wants to be a millionaire contestant who was asked, what is bigger?

A)An Elephant
B)The Moon
C)A mouse
D)Can't rememeber

Bearing in mind this was the first question,she thought about it for some time and then said......Elephant!! Think she may have been a kiwi or an American.

Anyways tried to look for it on te web and found this gem instead.

www.biggestidiotontheinternet.com/2008/12/who-wants-to-be-game-show-idiot.html

The great thing about this guy is he's a smug grinning American "student" The supreme look of confidence on his face when he answers the first question is priceless but not as priceless as the mortified look on his face when he realises, or not, how stupid he is.
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:42, 8 replies)

Having read the question
it seems as if it was tailored for me alone. My best friend and I often have a drunken argument about gravity, which is always impressive and leads to us fending off the ladies in their droves as you can imagine.

Whenever we get together in an alcohol fueled environment, it starts. "We only have gravity because earth is spinning. If earth stopped spinning, we'd all float away." The proof of this, astoundingly, is "If you spin a bucket of water around your head the water stays in the bucket." I, like a large section of society I imagine, am not quite sure of the facts and figures when it comes to astrophysics, so am unable to offer a completely sound argument to dissuade him from his beliefs, and "For fucks sake, gravity is just a thing" doesn't seem to cut it.

He has a new one, though. In what seems to me like an effort just to wind me up, he recently let it slip that he believes the effect the moon has on the tides here on earth is "A load of shite" and tides are caused by hot water and cold water mixing. Trying to explain that this is what causes currents but not tides, which are caused by the moon's gravitational pull (which was a stretch after 6 pints, 2 vodkas and a stiffy) was met with the response "Does it fuck. How can it? It's fucking miles away!"

Explaining that all of earths scientists would have to have not thought of his hot/cold theory did no good.

I text him about it the following day and he denied he ever said anything. There are clumps of my hair on the pub floor to prove otherwise.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:41, 9 replies)

"Vietnam?"
"Didnae hav a war with them or summat?"

My nickname at work was then "Jeeves" for being able to tell her.
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:40, Reply)

It's bigger
My former lodger was convinced that a way to reduce the size of a document file was to reduce the font size.

I used to think of him as rather bright but I could fill pages of this QOTW with his wisdom. More coming up.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:38, 4 replies)

someone asked who was in charge in brazil
housemate # 1: oh, george bush isnt it?

housemate # 2: no, he's just the president of the usa.

housemate # 1: yes, but brazil is in the usa.

turns out she thought the united states of america included both american continents and that george w. bush was president of all of it.
(ladyintheradiator, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:31, 1 reply)

This does it for me - a basic misunderstanding of maths
Props to whoever posted it on Links a while back:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg

Ignorance is always most alarming when accompanied by a complete blank resistance to being corrected.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:28, 3 replies)

More a display of stupidity than ignorance
I knew a teacher who once told us how she was trying to get to Cardiff from Bristol. And she ended up in Exeter or somewhere, car broken, crying her little eyes out while she phoned her fiance to ask how to fix the car. He (obviously being well aware of how stupid she was) told her to describe what was going on, and she obliged. When he couldn't figure it out, he hung up to go find the AA's number, and another driver stopped to see if he could help her. After a moment of poking back he came back with a funny look on his face and pointed out that her petrol gauge was empty. She hadn't realised what that gauge was for (she just filled up whether she needed to or not apparantly). She taught us science unbelievably
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:26, 4 replies)

Also,
I was listening to the radio one time and my sister and her friend entered the room.

The friend then proceeded to ask why the American national anthem was playing.

I think 'The Final Countdown' wouldn't be too out of place TBH.
( JojoThe3rd They WILL wear lapel pins., Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:25, Reply)

The AA
One of the Essex girls at work (bear with me, it is relevant) was telling us one Monday how she'd broken down at the weekend in Brighton and had had to call round her mates to pick her up. Her manager asked why she wasn't a member of the AA, and her response was "Yeah, I am, but they don't work outside Essex do they?".
(cupc@ke, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:21, 1 reply)

This one time
... she took the morning after pill the morning after I put it in her shitter.
(Clerk T Hazarde are all the wine, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:20, 10 replies)

Intelligence
A new starter at our place was discussing the difference between a Psychologist and a Psychiatrist; "Psychiatrists are smarter than Psychologists arent they?".

Yes, they take an IQ test and are graded.

Also, our maintenance bloke came round and was testing the Emergency Lighting; this means he has to spend 2-3 hours on the unit spreading his idiocy. His latest; "I dont see why we should give money to Haiti and other disasters, cos they never helped us out when we had our floods".

Theres more.
(kitescreech still here, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:18, Reply)

When I told my mum I was out
I had to explain to her for a good twenty minutes that I wasn't 'outside', as in out in the open. I was actually a homosexual. Mothers!
(Gulliver, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:17, 1 reply)

My cousin
fell out with me after insisting that North is 'that way' *points into the sky*. Apparently laughing in people's faces is not conducive to learning...
( JojoThe3rd They WILL wear lapel pins., Thu 18 Mar 2010, 17:15, Reply)