What stupid questions have you been asked or overheard?

[TheTecknician]

During a training session when I worked in the motor insurance business, someone enquired if 'registration' and 'registration mark' were the same thing. The trainer's disdainful expression was a corker. In fairness to our enquirer, he has come a long way and is now MD of a large commercial insurance broker.

I think one daft question we will all have heard at some time or other is,

'Excuse me, do you have the right time?'
'No, but I have the wrong time if that's any use.'

Last week i was walking my dog on the evening and i found a mobile with a bank card in it belonging to a man called graham. As i was nearly home and the phone had a low battery, i took the phone home to charge it and hoped that it would ring. It did ring and it was an elderly lady trying to speak to her husband who had gone out. I explained i found the phone and would take it to the local shop so they can collect it. She asked if i could drop it to her address instead as she struggled with her mobility. She told me the address which was not far from my house so i agreed to drop it round for her straight away. When i knocked on the door, she thanked me for being kind and said "so how do you know Graham?" I told her i didnt know him. That i only knew the name from the bank card. She then said " oh how lovely. I will tell Graham that you have been. I will have to phone him now so you can speak to him". She then used her phone to call Grahams phone which was still in her other hand and then answered his phone and hung up her phone to answer Graham's one. When nobody answered her on grahams phone, she got really annoyed and said " they didnt even answer me. Some people are so rude. Whats the point in phoning and then not speaking?" I quickly left her to it. 😂😂

That’s not a stupid question at all. Can you answer it?

A significant number of these are just highlighting the posters own ignorance and aren’t stupid at all.

That’s not stupid. There many, many people whose life experience doesn’t include either Oxford as a City or University education in general.

I once overheard a customer at work asking her companion,
"If it's called The War of the Roses, why do we wear poppies?" 🤔

Well, it's not particularly Oxford - few, if any, universities consist of a single building.

Edinburgh as a student I worked in Jenners, I lost count of how many time I was asked by American tourists 'what time does the one o'clock gun go off at' .

My dad was at a party hosted by his sister, let’s call her Jane. A man asked him if he knew Janet - indicating my dad’s sister. My dad replied yes, Jane was his sister. ‘No, her name is Janet’ replied the man. My dad just looked at him. Raised an eyebrow and said ‘oh, really?’

I once asked the Post Office cashier how much a 9p stamp was.

We had a power cut at work and I was asked by one of the younger staff if the loo would still flush!

There are no stupid questions: only stupid answers. Here are some which could be mistaken for stupid questions.

"Where is Leeds Castle?" Hint: nowhere near the big northern city called Leeds.
"What's in my hamburger?" Hint: not ham.
"What date was Jesus born?" Hint: probably not 25th December, according to many scholars. That's merely the date we celebrate it.

if he would be ok to get money out of a cashpoint in France because his bank account was only in English money! Not a stupid question at all. I'd hesitate to do this, because it might incur much higher handling fees than accessing the money another way.

Are God’s parents Mr and Mrs Big-Bang? Many Mumsnetters would answer that with "God doesn't exist, who indoctrinated you? God help them!"

I swim in the river through the year. In the depths of winter, we regularly get ‘is it cold?’ In the height of summer, is it hot? Like water from the hot tap, with steam coming off it? Genuine question.

Are you a nurse? You might have been an actor for Casualty. (Apparently it did happen, that actors were mistaken for nurses!)

What time is midnight mass? Not midnight at my church either. Although I remember a time at my parents' church when it was supposed to start at midnight, and in the silence, lots of watches went "beep beep" (remember the watches which beeped on the hour?), and still nothing happened for several minutes. Jesus was late that year.

Half way through the film "Ghost" the woman next to me loudly asked her friend if Patrick Swayze’s character was dead. I've only seen it once (and thought it was really dull), but isn't the case that Patrick Swayze's character didn't even realise he was dead, until he saw his partner looking at his dead body?

Somebody asked her if she was having ivf because blind people can't have sex because they can't see where the other person is! You should have told her that some people like to be blindfolded while they have sex, that would have blown her mind. And as Ebenezer Blackadder observed: "how the ugly royal family managed to procreate, I've no idea. The bedchambers of Buckingham Palace must be copiously supplied with blindfolds."

Well I once asked my colleagues what time the 24h Tesco closed at 4pm. On a Sunday, at least. As a student one hot and sleepless night, I went to Asda at 2am just to see who went shopping at that time. It seems the answer was lots of cardboard boxes (the aisles were full of them), and a man with a baby.

What's the time (in a clock shop)? Lots of people might have said "ten to two" as a first answer.

Mind you, my mum has a habit of asking "is it raining?", because doing so is simpler than looking outside.

It is usually the carols which start at 11:30pm, the mass will usually start at midnight...

I fairly recently asked my husband “wow look at the moon, why is it so bright?” It was of course the sun.

Our kids are adopted, I was once asked if we bought them from the internet. We’ve been asked if we get divorced will we keep one each or just give them back.

Worked in a travel agency.

I was booking a theatre break for a woman and asked where they'd like to sit - stalls, dress circle etc. She chose the dress circle. Then she asked if that meant her husband would have to wear a bow tie.

She thought the dress circle meant there was a formal dress code rather than it being a specific area of seating. No idea where she got that from. I don't think they'd been to the theatre before. 😂

EDIT - typo

Yeah and my response would apply to any of these too. The people you overheard weren’t asking a stupid question. They just have a different life to yours.

It’s what the term ‘dress circle’ meant originally.

That is brilliant 😂😂

Be sure to keep the receipts.

I'm sure I've asked many dumb questions, but I only remember one:

I was under the impression that a colleague lived in the countryside, and asked her "you live in xx village, don't you?"

She replied "oh no, I live in the city, quite close to the High Street"

I then asked "Are you sure?"🙄

Ha how did you respond 😂😂

A friend told me her mum had been for scan when pregnant with twins...she said she didn't want to know the sex(es) but then asked if they were the same...the answer was no!

My sister is very book smart but life dumb. I mean she’s a psychiatrist for goodness sakes.
I once told her at my uni I had to share a mailbox. She goes ‘but how do you know which mail is for you’? I just looked at her for a long minute til she went ‘oooooh’.

see, another example where the person mocking the original asker for their "stupid" question actually reveals their own ignorance...!

About a century ago

🤣