Comments on: Contest: Reduce idiocy, one fact at a time!

By: Janel

Janel — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 04:25:58 +0000

I was taking a writing class as a night class and my professor spent about an hour and a half of the three hour class talking about being concise. He also told us not to use big words that no one knows the meaning to, and then he proceeded to use several.

I’m glad I’m not in that class anymore.

By: Katie Britt

Katie Britt — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:25:33 +0000

Our school’s visual ensemble made many posters for our homecoming dance, which will last from 8 P.M. to midnight. Most girls wrote 8 P.M.-12 P.M. That’s a rockin’ 16-hour dance.

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:56:43 +0000

Overheard a VP talking to the IT manager about his budget overrun:

â€œWell if the computer upgrade makes the employees more productive, shouldn’t they have to pay for new equipment?â€

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:38:44 +0000

This wasn’t recently, but when I was taking a physics class in college, we were discussing the speed of light. When our instructor started talking about length dilation (how something’s length increases as it approaches the speed of light), someone raised their hand and asked, “Is that why a plane gets bigger as it flies toward you?”

By: wydraz

wydraz — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:59:02 +0000

The most idiotic (and most shameful) thing I’ve seen yet is that after five years, there is still nothing standing where the World Trade Center fell.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:54:47 +0000

Once when I was on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya from Paris, France, I got up to stretch my legs and ended up in conversation with someone I knew from university. We glanced up to see our flight’s location on the television screen map, and my classmate, well in his 30′s said, “look, we’re passing over Equador.” I asked if he meant “the equator,” and he became a little standoffish and quickly returned to his seat. Perhaps I should preface this story by saying that we both attended an “International” University with multiple friends from the country of Ecuador. Good luck with the campaign!

By: violet/riga

violet/riga — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:43:18 +0000

On September 11th a student in class asks “Will we be having a minutes silence today?” Assuming so I said that we would. Confused, a second student asks “What, for Steve Irwin?”

Fair point I suppose though – it was exactly one week after his death.

By: doctor in training

doctor in training — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:26:23 +0000

Once, when I was in medical school, we were discussing the muscles of the face and, in reference to the eye, someone referred to the orbicularis oris. How we laughed because, of course, she meant orbicularis oculi!

By: Sillstaw

Sillstaw — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 05:56:32 +0000

Hopefully we can do A) several entries, and B) stuff that’s not quite new.

1. My teacher asks our class (which generally called out random answers and hoped they’d get it right) what important event happened in the fall of 2004. (He was referring to the election.) One boy called out, “The Great Depression!”

2. In a game where selected people had to run to the chalkboard and write an answer to a question (this is the 9th grade, by the way), a question is, “What American event in 1776 inspired the French Revolution?” Nobody up there knew the answer. You’d think “1776″ would be the loudest way of saying “The Declaration Of Independence!” but nobody picked up on it.

3. As people are having side conversations in class, I ask if anyone has seen “Million Dollar Baby.” One kid suggests that I see “$1,000,000 Duck.” Translation: I asked if anybody’s seen a dark film about boxing, somebody suggests I watch an idiotic film about a duck that lays golden eggs.

4. Not really as stupid as the rest, but interesting. In one class, it’s election day, and one girl is especially outspoken about her anti-Bush views. The rest of the class, made up of very conservative kids, makes fun of her mercilessly; even the teacher makes fun of her. It gets to her and she leaves the classroom. What class is this? Seminary, a Mormon class. In other words, one place where you’d expect people to be tolerant.

5. I’m talking to a girl about movies she’s seen, and I mention “The Aviator.” She says she doesn’t remember it. I try to refresh her memory by saying Howard Hughes’ name. She says, completely seriously, “I don’t pay attention to actors.”

By: K

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 03:19:44 +0000

My favorite- I’m at the mall, and Auntie Anne’s has some samples outside. One has a small piece of a hotdog wrapped inside a pretzel, and the others are plain pretzels. This girl points to the plain pretzels and asks “Do these have meat in them?”