An Adult Should Really Know This - Silly Things You've Had to Tell People

[cabbageweevil]

The posts re "bovine-informationally-challenged" bring to mind my favourite thing of all time, on those lines. Admittedly, it was written by a kid, so allowing leeway is in order. An (urban) schoolchild was told to write an essay on one kind of bird, and one kind of beast.

"The bird I am going to write about is the owl. The owl cannot see at all in the daytime, and at night it is as blind as a bat.

I do not know much about the owl, so I will go on to the beast I am going to choose. It is the cow. The cow is a mamal, and it is tame. It has six sides, right, left, fore, back, and upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away, so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns, and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with. The mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes, and there is never any end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realised, but it makes more and more. The man cow is called an ox, but what it eats it eats twice, so that it gets enough. When it is hungry, it moos, and when it says nothing, it is because its inside is full up of grass.

The cow has a good sense of smell; it can be smelt from a long way away. That is the reason for the fresh air in the country."

[perpetua]

The posts re "bovine-informationally-challenged" bring to mind my favourite thing of all time, on those lines. Admittedly, it was written by a kid, so allowing leeway is in order. An (urban) schoolchild was told to write an essay on one kind of bird, and one kind of beast.

"The bird I am going to write about is the owl. The owl cannot see at all in the daytime, and at night it is as blind as a bat.

I do not know much about the owl, so I will go on to the beast I am going to choose. It is the cow. The cow is a mamal, and it is tame. It has six sides, right, left, fore, back, and upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away, so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns, and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with. The mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes, and there is never any end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realised, but it makes more and more. The man cow is called an ox, but what it eats it eats twice, so that it gets enough. When it is hungry, it moos, and when it says nothing, it is because its inside is full up of grass.

The cow has a good sense of smell; it can be smelt from a long way away. That is the reason for the fresh air in the country."

That's brilliant. That's made my day, that has.

[Emmy]

I have a friend who was raised from birth in the USA and some of the etiquette issues astounded me.  A few examples:

He asked if he should ask a girl he was dating to lose weight.  They had only gone out of a few dates. 

This friend really didn't understand that it wasn't appropriate to invite yourself to other people's homes and parties.  The best example was a wedding I was invited to as a guest of another friend of mine.  My etiquettely challenged friend asked to come along to the wedding, although he wasn't invited, and didn't even know the couple.  Even worse was he really didn't seem grasp it when I told him he wasn't invited and the couple planned and budgeted for a certain number of guests.  He said, "it wouldn't be a big deal to pull up an extra chair and get an extra place setting".  He has also invited other people to events for which he was not the host.  That group of friends played on a volleyball team and often went out to eat after a game.  Another member of the team was getting people together at his house when clueless friend asked the waitress that nobody knew if she wanted to come to other member's house for a party without clearing it with the host.

[kherbert05]

The full moon and the new moon have the same mass. You still have high and low tides on a new moon.

Wait, what?  They think the moon changes mass?  Where...do they think the mass goes? And ... how does it come back?  How do these people understand the moon landing?  Like, we had to schedule it when enough of the moon was there?  I.... Just typing that made my head hurt.

They think the full moon has more gravity and that it effects kids behavior because the human body is 80% water. It comes from people saying that spring tides are caused by the full moon - but they are caused by the sun and moon  being in a line so their gravitational pull is combined rather than fighting each other.


One of my second graders came to me this year and said, "I know why people thought there were monsters when there was a full moon."


Me "Why"


Kid "There is more light, so people would say oh I can see ok I'm going walk to my friend's house after dark. Then they would get eaten by a regular wolf or cougar. But more people would get eaten on nights of a full moon because more people were outside because they could see more. They didn't have science yet so they made up a story to scare people to so they would stay inside on nights of a full moon.


He came up with this after a unit on folktales. We had made a list of the "good" character animals and the "bad" character animals. Then I asked them why people would have cast the animals in these good or bad character rolls. The kids had figured out that many of the "bad" animals are carnivores and top of the food chain predators  so could kill humans or their livestock.

[rose red]

Speaking of farms and meat, if you eat chicken, you are not a vegetarian.

[cabbageweevil]

That's brilliant. That's made my day, that has.

Thanks. I first came across this one as a child, well over 50 years ago. It's cracked me up, ever since.

[Yarnspinner]

We have a sign in our employee's only restroom that says "Please Flush!"   

We have that one and a sign that reads, "Please don't brush your hair over the sink"  in one of the unisex bathrooms and, in the ladies' restroom, we have a sign telling the female employees to wrap up and dispose of sanitary products.  I look at my fellow female workers in horror sometimes as I wonder "Is it YOU"?

[katycoo]

My recent favorite was having to tell my sister, an otherwise intelligent woman, that even though my DD wanted her to beep her horn good bye to her as she dropped her off at school after an appointment, it was inappropriate because SCHOOL WAS IN SESSION!!  Why anyone would think that repeatedly honking your horn when you are parked right in front of classrooms is a good idea, I have no idea but I just about lost it when she said ok and went to do it!

I actually don't see what the big deal here is.  13 years of schooling was never once affected by the odd horn-beeping.

[Yarnspinner]

Library questions from people who have definitely gotten at least through High School:

1) What do you mean, there were no battles of World War II fought right here in New England?  My daughter has to write about a battle that took place in New England and she wants to write it about something more recent that the revolution.

2) (Same woman after I explain that there is a reason that WW II and WWI were known as European wars) "Why?  Where's Europe?  I've never heard ot it."

3) Male patron, also doing his child's homework:  "Quick.  I need a book about the day the U.S. bombed Chernobyl!"

4) And the ever popular:  "I need a book for my son's homework project.  I need photographs of live dinosaurs."  I thought this was just us, but almost every library has a variation on this one, including the people who complain (And I had to field this one) "You have DVDs with video tape/film of John F. Kennedy giving his Inaugural Address/Richard Nixon's farewelladdress/Dwight Eisenhower's Campaign Speech/Martin Luther King's "I Haqve a Dream Speech", but you don't have ANY audio or visual copies of the films of George Washington's inauguration or Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  What is WRONG with this library?"

Ever try explaining to someone who is older than you are that cameras were not around in the Jurrasic age and were still a new cool technology when Lincoln was speaking and videotape was but a dream?

[Thipu1]

Oh, the library Situations.  The mind boggles. 

Teaching someone in University how to read a Table of Contents.

Teaching someone else in University how to write a citation for a bibliography.

The ancient Egyptians did not colonize North America.  The existence of Memphis, Tennessee is not proof. 

Hanibal did not take his elephants over the Alps to bring Islam to Spain.

The Nile flows from South to North. 

Ancient Egyptian women did not have beauty secrets that kept them looking like College Cheerleaders into old age.  (That one came from a woman's magazine and they were dead serious about it.)

The Classic questions:

Were the pyramids really built from the bottom up?

How do mummies manage to live and survive?

After 20 years on the Ref desk I've been tempted to write a book titled, 'I'm Forever Bursting
Bubbles'.

[lady_disdain]

After 20 years on the Ref desk I've been tempted to write a book titled, 'I'm Forever Bursting
Bubbles'.

Please do!

[cwm]

I used to work in a fast food/grocery store. We sold bags of peanuts. They came by the box, one box with lots of bags. Clearly labeled on the box AND the bags:

"Warning: May Contain Traces of Peanuts"

No joke.

[veronaz]

I've been amazed at the number of people who think:
Africa is a country
Apartheid just meant it was separate from the US
Cuba is part of Mexico
 

[lady_disdain]

I had to enlighten a class mate (final year computer engineering student) what the initial IT meant on a job listing.

[Thipu1]

There is also a Classic joke known as 'The Librarian's Nightmare'. 

It's a minor spoiler but readers should know that Massapequa is a town near New York on Long Island.

First patron...'I need some books on a food in Mesopotamia'.

Second patron...'My whole class has to do reports on food in Macedonia'.

Third Parton...'I need stuff on food in Massapequa'. 

Fourth patron.  'My kid's got soccer practice so I'm here to pick up some books for her.  She has to make a report on food in, well, Mesa or or Masa something.  You kinda got that before, I guess'.
 .  .