Shocking stupidity

Pherekydes

tech77 wrote: »

Also FWIW i also highlighted your own grammatical/punctuation mistakes (which include a misplaced comma before Farrah Fawcett-Majors).
Man this is ridiculous.

You need to brush up on your grammar.

Neither are mistakes.

Lump

I don't what a verb is, and DOES IT ACTUALLY MATTER?!

Laslo

It's a matter of terminology and has nothing to do with intelligence at all really. This thread is utterly void. The OP should probably be aware that there are a lot of people out there that are considerably more intelligent than he/she is. They might even consider him/her to be stupid!

The fact is that we can't all be Albert Einstein and we should respect other people regardless. There are different kinds of stupidity. Not knowing what a verb is isn't stupid. Watching Big Brother or thinking that Gordon Ramsey is anything less than a disgusting, obnoxious a$$hole - now that's stupidity.

Archeron

Perhaps a better measure of intelligence is how much time you spend/waste sitting around watching dumb ass gameshows which are aimed at the lowest common denominators of society.
And bonus points to anyone who gets that involved with it that they go and rant about it online.

tech77

Slow coach wrote: »

You need to brush up on your grammar.

Neither are mistakes.

The comma after the word "was" and before "Farrah Fawcett-Majors" is indeed unnecessary and misplaced:

Slow coach wrote: »

For the record, the question was, "Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Jaclyn Smyth and Kate Jackson appeared in what show as private detectives?"

As for using the conjunction "And" at the start of a sentence that's no longer a big deal grammatically but shouldn't be overdone.

Pherekydes

tech77 wrote: »

The comma after the word "was" and before "Farrah Fawcett-Majors" is indeed unnecessary and misplaced:


As for using the conjunction "And" at the start of a sentence that's no longer a big deal grammatically but shouldn't be overdone.

I'm not sure now about the first point. Are you objecting to the comma before direct speech or quotation generally or just in this specific instance. I'll stand by my usage, ergo it is not a mistake.

Starting with a conjunction is no longer a big deal grammatically? Does that mean that's not a mistake, either? And how would one calculate overdoneness? Have you gone through all of my posts, plus my academic writings? Or is it a cumulative thing amongst all posters/writers?

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Sangre wrote: »

In fairness a lot of people don't classify Scotland or Wales as countries, the latter for example is a principality. You'd have an arguement to say that the UK is just one country.

wow - "a lot of people don't classify Scotland as a country". Who doesn't classify Scotland as a country? I'm guessing the answer is either (a) dumbasses, or (b) people with the geopolitical knowledge of a moron?

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

im_invisible wrote: »

think thats bad? i still dont know what a tracker mortgage is

FTW

Jumpy

Roundtower2 wrote: »

wow - "a lot of people don't classify Scotland as a country". Who doesn't classify Scotland as a country? I'm guessing the answer is either (a) dumbasses, or (b) people with the geopolitical knowledge of a moron?

FREEEEEEDOM

nice1franko

tech77 wrote: »

This follows on a bit from the -5, -6 thread below.

I was just watching "Are you smarter than a ten year old" on sky one with Noel Edmonds.

A contestant, a grown woman was asked what was the verb in this sentence "The man worked really hard" and she couldn't answer it.

I was literally shocked that
1) an adult could be that stupid
2) that that adult would then appear on national tv exposing this stupidity.

I'm constantly amazed by depths of ignorance/stupidity and yet these people it would seem function perfectly normally in society.

I'm thinking to myself maybe dumb IS the new world order and the way to go.

Incidentally that show is annoying in so many ways I don't know where to start...

I find it shocking that people confuse stupidity with ignorance.

thebman

I can't remember what a verb is, well I can after reading this thread. It doesn't really matter if you can remember what the definition of a verb is. Most people can structure a sentence without remembering the definition of a verb.

Same with maths. You can make a good estimate about the force you should throw an object at to get it to someone but can you do the math to work it out in your head?

walshb

tech77 wrote: »

This follows on a bit from the -5, -6 thread below.

I was just watching "Are you smarter than a ten year old" on sky one with Noel Edmonds.

A contestant, a grown woman was asked what was the verb in this sentence "The man worked really hard" and she couldn't answer it.

I was literally shocked that
1) an adult could be that stupid
2) that that adult would then appear on national tv exposing this stupidity.

I'm constantly amazed by depths of ignorance/stupidity and yet these people it would seem function perfectly normally in society.

I'm thinking to myself maybe dumb IS the new world order and the way to go.

Incidentally that show is annoying in so many ways I don't know where to start...

To be quite honest, I don't see that as a particularly easy question. I consider myself to be well read and quite good when it
comes to grammar and spelling and tenses etc etc etc, but I didn't
know for certain what the verb was. I had an idea, but it's probably been 20 years since I was told what a verb was and according to the definition of a verb, it's not all that clear cut....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb

Snarler

Its clear from everybodies responses that the OP himself is a a bit of a tard for misjudging the situation so badly.

Topic over, lock this Terry.

Dinxminx

The verb is "the DOING word" - that's what I learned at school!

And the second verse of Jack and Jill goes something like...

Up Jack got and off he trot as fast as he was able
Went to bed to mend his head with vinegar and brown paper.

Or something.

Still remember from reading it off the wall of the creche when I was miniature!

Latchy

Archeron wrote: »

Perhaps a better measure of intelligence is how much time you spend/waste sitting around watching dumb ass gameshows which are aimed at the lowest common denominators of society.
And bonus points to anyone who gets that involved with it that they go and rant about it online.

Like what i said below,wouldent you need to watch these programmes a few times to to form an opinion ?

It's like that horrible Jeremy Kyle show were al these dysfuctional familys / people are paraded on stage to air there dirty laundry , like the mental patients on view in victorian times , in front of an audience (usually middle class student types ) , and what's annoying is creepy jeremy is up for a ' best programme' award soon.The programme targets the lowlifes and the weakest in society for entertainment

Stupidty in society indeed ....

L31mr0d

The OP needs to get off his high horse for a minute. I took the mensa test and scored in the top 1% of the population but I had to think for a second what the verb in the sentence was.

Had I been under pressure, on a TV show, with Noel Edmunds scraggy beard in my face my brain would of probably gone blank. They use psychological stimulae on quiz shows like this to make it harder for people to concentrate. I remember watching a documentary about how the set of "who wants to be a millionaire" was specifically designed to make people feel uneasy, along with the tense music playing constantly in background, so that they wouldn't be able to concentrate. Which is why people always say these gameshows are a lot easier when you answer the questions at home.

On top of this, I haven't even HEARD or READ the word "verb" since secondary school. I excel in spatial relations and mathematics. In college we usually worked in teams and the guy who was good writing would write up the reports. For my thesis I mainly used diagrams and graphs along with bullet point explanations.

I will be the first to admit I have a loose knowledge of languages. But i've accepted that isn't my strong point.

Citing something as irrelevant as not knowing what a verb is as "shocking" is like myself scoffing at the OP for not being able to calculate the result of a discrete fourier transform

tech77

nice1franko wrote: »

I find it shocking that people confuse stupidity with ignorance.

Who's confusing stupidity with ignorance?
Just because i have them separated with a slash doesn't mean they're synonymous.
I even alluded to the distinction between stupidity and ignorance in 2 previous posts.
I said that this woman was ignorant (because ignorant basically means "not knowing") but i also felt this amounted to more than mere ignorance (ie stupidity or lack of intelligence because of the intrinsic link between linguistics and intelligence).

Slow coach wrote: »

I'm not sure now about the first point. Are you objecting to the comma before direct speech or quotation generally or just in this specific instance. I'll stand by my usage, ergo it is not a mistake.

Starting with a conjunction is no longer a big deal grammatically? Does that mean that's not a mistake, either? And how would one calculate overdoneness? Have you gone through all of my posts, plus my academic writings? Or is it a cumulative thing amongst all posters/writers?

OK see point 7 under grammar here if you don't believe me about this.
Basically, a comma is only used to set off quoted material that is the grammatical object of an active verb of speaking or writing (said, replied etc and not "was" as you have written).

Hrududu

Brilliant thread. I saw this show for the first time the other night. A guy went out because he didnt know that Jack, from Jack and Jill used vinegar and brown paper to fix his broken crown. Hardly a measure of his intelligence.

I didnt see the verb one but its likely I would have gotten it wrong. I'm reasonably well educated but I have no memory whatsoever of even learning sentance structures. Its something I've always assumed we didnt get taught in Ireland but from reading this thread I'm obviously wrong.

Latchy

L31mr0d wrote: »

Had I been under pressure, on a TV show, with Noel Edmunds scraggy beard in my face my brain would of probably gone blank.

My son has a t-shirt with noel edmonds face on it and a caption underneath saying ' I Hate Noel Edmunds ' .

r3nu4l

To be honest a lot of people seem to delight in not knowing about anything. These people are wilfully ignorant and that is the shocking thing! They deliberately avoid educating themselves any further. :rolleyes:

I have no problem with people who are genuinely a little slow but still try but I do have a problem with the "I is keepin' it real man, I don't have no time for readin' an sh1t!" types.

walshb

tech77 wrote: »

Who's confusing stupidity with ignorance?
Just because i have them separated with a slash doesn't mean they're synonymous.
I even alluded to the distinction between stupidity and ignorance in 2 previous posts.
I said that this woman was ignorant (because ignorant basically means "not knowing") but i also felt this amounted to more than mere ignorance (ie stupidity or lack of intelligence because of the intrinsic link between linguistics and intelligence).



OK see point 7 under grammar here if you don't believe me about this.
Basically, a comma is only used to set off quoted material that is the grammatical object of an active verb of speaking or writing (said, replied etc and not "was" as you have written).

You post on boards a grammar query and yet you yourself make one of, if not the most basic grammatical errors that can be made. Never never is a small or lower case (i) to be used in a sentence, unless of course the (i) is a letter in a word. Nor is a lower case (i) to be used in (I'm) or (I'd)
Sorry, I couldn't resist pulling you up on that one....

nice1franko

tech77 wrote: »

...I said that this woman was ignorant (because ignorant basically means "not knowing") but i also felt this amounted to more than mere ignorance (ie stupidity or lack of intelligence because of the intrinsic link between linguistics and intelligence).

So, not knowing linguistic terminology is a clear indication of stupidity because there is an intrinsic link between linguistics and intelligence.

Maybe your assumption is wrong?

Latchy

Some stupid iggnorent people hold down jobs of high importance ,look at George bush for example ....:)

syklops

It is true that the general population, is getting dumber[intentional pun here].

I think the british, mainly, but Ireland is starting to suffer aswell. I read somewhere a few days ago that a polish immigrant went back to Poland when he/she discovered the poor level of education in Britain.

I also, remember seeing on "Have I Got News for You", that they have started to dumb down shakespeare in British schools because Kids were having problems understanding it. One of the headlines(not sure whether it was real or not) said, "Im not fick, I just don't get this, yeah".

Another example of stupidity that I have encountered, was a boy who knocked on the door, asking to be sponsored for some gaa thing. All I had on me at the time was a euro, which I offered him, but he pointed at the card which had a 2 euro printed on the corner, and said it had to be a 2 euro! Needless to say he didnt get it.

What is happening to this part of the world. I wrote a thread a few weeks ago about the decline of Toy Shops. Could there be a link between kids not developing problem solving abilities through playing with toys, and the population getting thicker?

Artos

How are you supposed to play mad libs without knowing what a verb is? Without mad libs, what are you supposed to do on a friday night?:)

walshb

syklops wrote: »

It is true that the general population, is getting dumber[intentional pun here].

I think the british, mainly, but Ireland is starting to suffer aswell. I read somewhere a few days ago that a polish immigrant went back to Poland when he/she discovered the poor level of education in Britain.

I also, remember seeing on "Have I Got News for You", that they have started to dumb down shakespeare in British schools because Kids were having problems understanding it. One of the headlines(not sure whether it was real or not) said, "Im not fick, I just don't get this, yeah".

Another example of stupidity that I have encountered, was a boy who knocked on the door, asking to be sponsored for some gaa thing. All I had on me at the time was a euro, which I offered him, but he pointed at the card which had a 2 euro printed on the corner, and said it had to be a 2 euro! Needless to say he didnt get it.

What is happening to this part of the world. I wrote a thread a few weeks ago about the decline of Toy Shops. Could there be a link between kids not developing problem solving abilities through playing with toys, and the population getting thicker?

I wouldn't agree that Britain is mainly suffering.
I think society has changed so much and
people don't seem to consider Shakespeare all that
important anymore, and to be honest, who can blame
them.

The British for centuries have set the standards and
a lot of the worlds educational systems are based
on the British model, or models.

I think general literacy in Ireland is very poor.

You only have to visit sites like boards.ie to realise this...

That's no offence to boards by the way....

With the advent of shorthand and texting and
all that, it's only natural that literacy will suffer..

Snarler

It is true that the general population, is getting dumber

Are you sure about this? I think people are just as intelligent as always if not more. its just that the way we apply our intelligence now has changed.

Terry

syklops wrote: »

What is happening to this part of the world. I wrote a thread a few weeks ago about the decline of Toy Shops. Could there be a link between kids not developing problem solving abilities through playing with toys, and the population getting thicker?

Nah. It's the fault of reality tv and the idiots the allow appear on it.

You then have a generation of kids growing up and wanting to be like Jade Goody (a woman who became a millionaire through exploiting her stupidity).

tech77

walshb wrote: »

You post on boards a grammar query and yet you yourself make one of, if not the most basic grammatical errors that can be made. Never never is a small or lower case (i) to be used in a sentence, unless of course the (i) is a letter in a word. Nor is a lower case (i) to be used in (I'm) or (I'd)
Sorry, I couldn't resist pulling you up on that one....

FFS.
See here and here
Informal internet post: Not concerned about capitalisation and punctuation.
Formal writing: Concerned about them.

nice1franko wrote: »

So, not knowing linguistic terminology is a clear indication of stupidity because there is an intrinsic link between linguistics and intelligence.

Maybe your assumption is wrong?

Having some idea of how to group words grammatically is related to intelligence.
Dunno why but i'd bet she wouldn't have been able to group words grammatically either TBH (so quite possibly stupid).
If she could well fair enough.
But if she doesn't even appreciate the meaning of terms like noun, verb etc i wonder would she be able to do such grouping..

zuutroy

Knowing what category a certain word is in is a really bad measure of intelligence. It has no relevance to most people's lives whatsoever! Just another pointless fact you learn in school. I regularly write articles for scientific journals and I have no clue what an adverb or pronoun or predicate is.

Latchy

Quote Skylops -I think the british, mainly, but Ireland is starting to suffer aswell. I read somewhere a few days ago that a polish immigrant went back to Poland when he/she discovered the poor level of education in Britain.

Considering that a vast majority of young poles refer to their country as ' that dump ' and are quite egar to flock to the uk that is somthing else ,quite a lot of poles come to work and improve on their education in Britain and ireland .

nice1franko

tech77 wrote: »

Having some idea of how to group words grammatically is related to intelligence.

If she couldn't string a sentence together I'd agree that she probably was thick but...

tech77 wrote: »

Dunno why but i'd bet she wouldn't have been able to group words grammatically either TBH (so quite possibly stupid).
If she could well fair enough.

Maybe what happened is that you jumped to the conclusion that she's stupid because she didn't know her linguistic terminlogy (her "linguistic lingo"?! ).

You said yourself you don't know why you think that. I reckon it's because your conclusion is built on very shaky ground.

Knowing the internal terminology for something is *completely* different from being able to use that thing correctly and competently.

IMO, this holds true for cars, iPods, English, mobile phones and email.

Cuddlesworth

I spent 12 years of my life in school and six years out since then.

In those 6 years out all that I have retained is a general understanding of how to structure my sentences, moderate spelling and basic math. And the funny thing is that in my future career choices and qualifications those are the only things that I may use. Makes me wonder why I wasted all those years.

I don't blame that lady for not knowing what the verb was. It seems to be a pretty common occurrence. From responses here its obvious that most care little about what was taught in school.

Latchy

=krazy_8s;54403130]I spent 12 years of my life in school and six years out since then.

In those 6 years out all that I have retained is a general understanding of how to structure my sentences, moderate spelling and basic math. And the funny thing is that in my future career choices and qualifications those are the only things that I may use. Makes me wonder why I wasted all those years.

I would say that applys to quite a lot of people

I don't blame that lady for not knowing what the verb was. It seems to be a pretty common occurrence. From responses here its obvious that most care little about what was taught in school.

In my case ,i was educated at the christian bros who's motto semed to be ' crush and break the individual and make him conform ' , which when you think of it is a strange way of teaching kids , but equally i learned more outside school than in it .

walshb

One question I have to ask is how many people nowadays can write a letter properly?. Since so much technology has arrived, we as people have forgotten or neglected the basics and opted for the convenience. I am not saying I disagree with it, it's just a fact of life....

Latchy

E-mail has replaced letter writing ,but the personel letter say's so much more .

SimpleSam06

r3nu4l wrote: »

I do have a problem with the "I is keepin' it real man, I don't have no time for readin' an sh1t!" types.

Why? They are electing themselves out of well paying jobs, informed decision making, a real career, and most of the good things the future holds, because they are too smart to educate themselves, apparently.

Leaving more space for me and mine.

I have no problem with that.

MOH

tech77 wrote: »

I know i did.
I said in a previous post that i am not concerned with punctuation, capitalisation etc in my internet posts..
Doesn't mean i don't know about it.
I use proper punctuation in formal writing, believe me.

So:
It's an internet post.
I'm lazy.
It's a typo.
Take your pick.

Also FWIW i also highlighted your own grammatical/punctuation mistakes (which include a misplaced comma before Farrah Fawcett-Majors).
Man this is ridiculous.

Wouldn't a colon be better?

Pompey Magnus

I have done 5 years in university, doing science related subjects. I could give a good shot at explaining what a Hydrogen bond is or how satellites can be used to map localised vegetation changes, but I honestly couldn't say what a verb or adjective is and I honestly couldn't care less. I have not once had to deal with anything like that since I was eight and it hasn't really affected me in any way.

Funnily enough I can read Shakespeare and although I may not be able to point out the verbs (if there are any, I don't know) in "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." I feel it does not detract from my appreciation of the piece. I also don't don't think that my ignorance in that regard somehow makes me stupid.

kaimera

God, imagine if the woman was from the US :rolleyes:

Sangre

Roundtower2 wrote: »

wow - "a lot of people don't classify Scotland as a country". Who doesn't classify Scotland as a country? I'm guessing the answer is either (a) dumbasses, or (b) people with the geopolitical knowledge of a moron?

Quite.

Scotland does not have sovereignty and only has limited power over its own education, transportation and social policies. Its also not externally recognised. There are no Scottish embassies. Only British ones.

I guess you'd be a moron though for thinking Scotland is not a independent country or state but rather a nation of people living in an internal division of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Jimbo

Slow coach wrote: »

It's neither. The word you're grasping for is 'migrating'. And emigrating has one 'm'.

How do you get past putting on your socks?

Hey man, dont turn this thing round on me, I'm supposed to be the intelligent one here

andrew

I can only vaguely remember being thought about verbs in English in primary school. We did very very little grammar, and i can see how some people might get this wrong as a result. Still, you'd have to be a least a little bit thick not to know what the verb was, but im just saying i can easily see how its possible.

Wertz

Not read the 8 pages or so, but I've seen the show a few times and have to say I'm utterly shocked by people coming on with degrees and snazzy job titles who know f*ck all (and worse, seem to delight in that fact)

Have to say I struggle on some of the 6yr old level questions if they're regarding nursery rhymes or that; in fact I'd say as a game strategy, leaving those questions till last is probably best then use lifelines.

Good premise for a quiz show though....just a shame TV execs keep giving Edmonds work :mad:

You learn more common sense intelligence from your parents than you do in university.
We always had books and newspapers in the house growing up, didn't watch endless hours of mindless TV and my parents always had the news on at 6pm.

I don't think people are getting thicker. Controversial I know, but stupid people breed more, therefore they produce offspring who don't bother in school and aren't expected to.

KIVES

Yea - knew people in University who constantly aced exams but just lacked common sense/all round knowledge...still amazes me to this day how one strand of intelligence and one strand of pure ineptness can cohabit merrily inside the same brain...incidently, the people I've mentioned have all gone on to great jobs(maybe they're not happy though and I wouldn't be dialling any of their numbers in the event I make it on to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) - Sounds like sour grapes but it's not really..

KIVES

KIVES wrote: »

Yea - knew people in University who constantly aced exams but just lacked common sense/all round knowledge...still amazes me to this day how one strand of intelligence and one strand of pure ineptness can cohabit merrily inside the same brain...incidently, the people I've mentioned have all gone on to great jobs(maybe they're not happy though and I wouldn't be dialling any of their numbers in the event I make it on to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) - Sounds like sour grapes but it's not really..

So true. You can pull PhDs out of your arse and have not one ounce of common sense.
I interviewed a guy with more qualifications than you can shake a stick at and he had no social skills whatsoever.
Education is a fine thing.... in tandem with basic knowledge.

DICK FINGERS

I haven't a degree or any qualifications
i had to leave school aged 11
my father died and i had to leave school to help my mother run the farm.

But even so i do know what a verb is.

By the way what station is this show on?

I've only got the four Irish channels

KIVES

DICK FINGERS wrote: »

I haven't a degree or any qualifications
i had to leave school aged 11
my father died and i had to leave school to help my mother run the farm.

But even so i do know what a verb is.

By the way what station is this show on?

I've only got the four Irish channels

Man - You should be on RTE 1's 'Would You Believe?' programme...Is there any calamity which hasn't befallen you...'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' airs on ITV/UTV every couple of months or so,but don't bother getting it - with the way your luck is going,you'd run over the postman in your tractor or fall down the stairs trying to rewire cables and the like...

Wertz

KIVES wrote: »

..'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' airs on ITV/UTV every couple of months or so,but don't bother getting it

That's nice.
But we're talking about a different show on a different channel.

Thanks for playing!