Today, I was in my supply chain management class discussing sources of energy. We were asked if it is better for New Zealand to ship their grass fed goats to Great Britain or if GB should use local goats fed wheat. ( The catch was that the wheat had to be shipping from the US, so in reality...they both had shipment costs)

While we were calculating the shipping costs for flight ( wheat) and boat ( goats) someone raised their hand. I was thankful that someone else was going to ask a question because I was stuck on part of the problem...here is what they asked...

" Why do the goats have to go on boat from New Zealand to Great Britain. If they drove, wouldn't it totally save on cost and time?"

They were dead serious.

There is such a thing as a stupid question. That is a prime example of one.

Sometimes I wonder if people ask that kind of stuff because they're trying be cute.

It really annoys me when people ask stuff that the teacher has already covered several times, as well. Its pretty clear you weren't listening in the first place, so don't waste everyones time and embarrass yourself trying to play catch up.

/end gripe.

It's the false data spawning the question that is dumb, not the question itself, because the question invariably leads to greater understanding - at least for the person (or donkey) asking it.

Here's a dumb question, it happened during training for my job. The instructor liked giving us brain teasers in the morning. One of the brain teasers was a paragraph about the paragraph itself and the idea was to figure out what was bizarre about said paragraph.

So here's what happened:
Instructor: Think of letter what's the most common letter?
Student: IT!
Instructor: No, a letter.
Student: You mean from the alphabet?

Mr. Garrison: Who knows what a can food drive is?
Eric Cartman: Isn't that where they cut open a chick's stomach to get the baby out?
Mr. Garrison: No that's a caesarian section, Eric, but remember there are no stupid questions, just stupid people.

I went to school with a girl last year, who was honestly the daftest girl I have ever met. One of our teachers was telling us a story about a patient of hers who was dying because her bowels were necrotising and they were keeping her alive by transfusing in blood until her daughter arrived from overseas to say goodbye. Unfortunately, because of the nature of her illness, the excess blood and faecal matter had to be constantly drained out of this lady's abdomen via a tube. Basically, she's just going to bleed to death through this tube.

After we heard this story, Daft Girl says "wow, is she conscious?" and our teacher says yes, and Daft Girl says "is she sad?"

Moral: There are both stupid questions AND stupid people.

Erin.
::righteous babe::

The question here is 'what's this' but in this instance, it was a very dumb question:

My future MIL has a lap dog she is freakishly attached to. It's very weird. The little thing goes everywhere with her (bathroom, dentist, restaurants) and she is neurotic about everything he does. He is a very long haired breed, some kind of Pomeranian/German Spitz mix and is literally a floof ball. This is the only kind of dog she likes and the only kind she has ever had. That is important for later.

One day she was petting him and noticed a 'bump on his stomach'- she called me and my fiance in a panic. We met her at the vet thinking the poor dog had a tumor or something. So we're all standing in the vets office and he can't find the bump. He asked her to show him where she felt it and she reaches down and grabs his little doggy penis. 'What's this?!' I cannot tell you how hard it was for me to maintain my composure as the vet looked at her like some kind of dog-molester and said 'Um maam, that is his penis.'

She thought dog pee came out near their butts (for this breed only!) and apparently never noticed that it didn't because she said she had never paid attention to dogs anatomy, and her dog squats to go. Her dog is so fluffy you only see paws and head but I'd still think you'd notice it on other dogs? I don't know.

Whenever she is being a brat to me I just think about her feeling up her beloved dog because she's too daft to know that dogs too, have wieners.

I was in a university class one day and I had someone ask what a midterm exam was...

We had an entire 2nd or 3rd year university course dedicated to learning how to use the library.

^ My Uni offered classes on how to use the library as well! I always though that was a little bit sad.

We had to take a mandatory online class on how to use the library.

I'm a medical student and we still have classes on how to use the "library". "Libraryy" because it's not about the textbooks, it's about more efficient methods of finding proper, peer-reviewed resources online.

I had to take a library class in undergrad as well. I don't think it is a dumb idea at all. Like by that point, most people have figured out that there is the dewey decimal system, but so many library's resources (I'm not talking about physical books) are under-utilized. For example, at my school's library you can email them your paper topic and set up a one-on-one appointment with a specialist who will help you find lesser known databases that are specific to your topic or help you select appropriate keyword terms for your project.

Nothing dumb about that.


People do ask dumb questions. We had a doctor speak and he told us of a patient with an amputated leg (and some other issues). My classmate asked, "Is it weird for him to walk?" Uh....

^I guess it's nice that this future doctor is already wondering about things from the patient's point of view. I guess...

I had a dance teacher who worked for me for a while look at a specialty catalog at a photo like this

and say, "What does five thousand six hundred seventy eight, mean?"

She gave up teaching dance and became an accountant.

Keep On Dancing*

I work as a librarian in a public library. One day, a man approached the reference desk and asked "Do you have any books?"

With a completely straight face I replied, "no, we're fresh out" (<----couldn't resist)

He then said "no, i know you HAVE books, but I'm looking for books you can borrow!"

*sigh*

so, yes dumb questions do exist.

When I took a TA seminar, the lecturer told us the reason we had offices and officemates was because of stupid questions. That we should try to not laugh at the offender, explain what we could, and to go back and share with your officemates.

I had a student in lab ask for more "dehydrated water" (it was labeled DH2O - distilled water). I told him to go back to his lab group, figure out what the D stood for, and then come back to ask for what it really was. Still laughing over that 4 years later!

I couldn't remember whether Baghdad was a city or a country the other day... but yeah I'm not always the brightest.

I'll have to make a trip to my local library to see if I can take out books!

I don't think there are stupid questions: in my mind it takes courage to realize that you don't know something and asking is one of the most direct ways to find an answer and fill that gap. I think staying quiet and ignoring a gap in knowledge is much stupider than asking a question that may make others laugh.

I had someone ask me a question similar to unco's example once. I worked at a video store and had someone come in and say "Do you have ummm like videos?" and I said, "what type of videos are you looking for? We have all kinds of movies, it is sort of what we do here..." and she said "No, like, old ones." Still trying to figure out what she was talking about I said "we have a range of old movies, most of them you will find in this section over here." and then she finally said "No I don't want a movie, I want a video." I finally figure out what she was asking for and said "Ohhh you need a VHS TAPE that you play on a VCR?" and she was like "I guess." At this point we had put almost all of our VHS tapes in our sale bins, as we weren't circulating them anymore and she was all in a huff about it.

Well, there are most definitely good questions, which indicates there must be a spectrum of question types. Without "average" and "below-average" ones, you wouldn't be able to define "good" ones.

That being said, even if you have a "dumb" question, it is usually preferable to ask it than to remain in ignorance.

I don't think there are stupid questions: in my mind it takes courage to realize that you don't know something and asking is one of the most direct ways to find an answer and fill that gap. I think staying quiet and ignoring a gap in knowledge is much stupider than asking a question that may make others laugh.

You're on crack. When I say, "Start with your right foot." And someone raises their hand to ask, "Which foot do we start with?" THAT is a stupid question.

When they were in high school, one of my sisters was a legend for her stupid questions. Kid you not, she once asked what kind of animal Mickey Mouse was. I think, in her case anyway, it's more not fleshing the thought out before she says it out loud, than it is full on stupidity.

I still don't think that's a stupid question: it shows the student was not paying attention, but I don't think it is a stupid question. She didn't know the answer (her own fault, of course) and knew that she needed the answer to fix her problem.

I agree that people can be stupid (or extremely inattentive), but not that that asking a question trying to gain information is stupid.

When I'm standing in front of 100 kids, I don't have time to split hairs like that. It was a question that shouldn't have been asked. It was a question that wasted everyone's time. It was a question that let EVERYONE know she wasn't paying attention. That's the definition of a stupid question, IMO.

Just because the person asking the question had a reason to ask it, does not make the question any less stupid.

Hey look, it is even in the dictionary

stu·pid   [stoo-pid, styoo‐]
1. lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.
2. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless: a stupid question.
3. tediously dull, especially due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless: a stupid party.
4. annoying or irritating; troublesome: Turn off that stupid radio.

dictionary.reference.com . . .

We once had an adult dancer ask what angle her feet shoud be at beat 3 1/2... she came out with some doozies where we all just looked at her with blank stares and kept going.

4 words:
Are we there yet?
To quote one of my favorite comedians, Tim Hawkins, "Yup, I like to just get somewhere and keep on going!"

1.Well are we?
2. And there's the ancient riddle, "How many angels can dance on the point of a pin?
Spoiler: Show