Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

How can you not know?!

423 replies

TittyGolightly · 19/04/2017 19:52

I work with a woman (29 and a mother of one) whose lack of general knowledge I can't quite believe to be normal. Ask anything about TOWIE or IACGMOOH and she knows it (unlike me) but the following are just some of the things she hasn't known in the past couple of weeks:

  • that we aren't "doing cows a favour" by milking them
  • that tea grows on bushes (or that it's a leaf)
  • that coffee comes from beans
  • that bees are being threatened by modern farming practices and that if there are no bees we will have no plants (inc fruit and veg)
  • that reindeer are real
  • that early humans lived in caves
  • that a month isn't 4 weeks

She "has no idea" how anyone can know this stuff. Confused

Is this normal now? My 6 year old knows most of this!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
Chavelita · 22/04/2017 08:27

Pooch, God Almighty.

Original poster
TittyGolightly · 22/04/2017 08:57

It's okay, apparently, because she's probably brilliant at other things. Hmm

OP posts:
shopits · 22/04/2017 09:39

I think what's important is how nice she is as a person. A bit shitty of you to post about her imo. DD has learning difficulties (wouldn't know to look or talk to her) and it saddens me to think people may well be posting and mocking her online as an adult.

Grow up.

Chavelita · 22/04/2017 09:57

Why does 'niceness' (a vague, bland term if I ever heard one) outweigh self-evident stupidity and ignorance?

Would the GP practice nurse's 'niceness' compensate for her inexcusable ignorance of human anatomy if, for instance, she stuck her speculum in the wrong orifice?

PoochSmooch · 22/04/2017 10:10

In her defence, I think it was mis-speaking rather than genuine ignorance. She does know, just at the time we were speaking she didn't join the dots and said a stupid thing.

Like when I said whales are fish Blush I do know they're not, but I just blurted out something dim.

SnickersWasAHorse · 22/04/2017 10:11

Might she have forgotten your hysterectomy rather than not understanding that it would lead to no periods, Pooch?

PoochSmooch · 22/04/2017 10:15

Possibly snickers. We were talking about smear tests and why I don't have to have them any more, and I don't remember exactly how it came out. I feel really bad that I brought it up now Blush. She's an ace nurse.

shopits · 22/04/2017 10:44

Chavelita It's about starting the thread itself! I'm not referring to the nurse, you are.

shopits · 22/04/2017 10:48

For example, concerns about the nurse should be raised with the practice manager surley? How is posting online about her (or anyone) going to help the situation? It's not.

Gwenhwyfar · 22/04/2017 10:48

"Why does 'niceness' (a vague, bland term if I ever heard one) outweigh self-evident stupidity and ignorance? "

It doesn't in the case of the nurse because she lacks knowledge required for her job, but in most of these other cases I think it does. Stupid people shouldn't be nurses, but there are plenty of jobs where it's not a problem and even possibly an advantage.

Gwenhwyfar · 22/04/2017 10:50

"How is posting online about her (or anyone) going to help the situation? It's not."

It's a warning to others isn't it - don't think that because someone has a nursing qualification that it means they can't be stupid.

Shakey15000 · 22/04/2017 11:00

It's just different knowledge though isn't it?

I consider myself well informed and "clever" but like Morris I'm spectacularly bad at common sense.

Case in point being I thought I could make cheese on toast by turning the toaster on it's side 😂

It doesn't work btw Blush

KoalaDownUnder · 22/04/2017 11:33

It's just different knowledge though isn't it?

Depends.

Not knowing how a random word is pronounced, for example, is 'just knowledge'.

Not knowing which political party is in power in your own country is wilful ignorance/apathy, and a bit embarrassing from a grown adult.

Chavelita · 22/04/2017 11:45

There seems to be a common myth on Mn that someone who is 'clever' compensates for it by having no common sense/eye-hand co-ordination/ability to function in the world of gravity, taxes, and toasters.

In my experience, this isn't generally true at all and I'm around my fair share of the more than averagely clever people and I wonder what lies behind this widespread myth, which looks uncannily like a desire to cut clever people down to size?

And conversely, to claim that bizarrely uninformed people 'must' be really nice because they're ignorant of basic general knowledge also doesn't seem to be based on anything.

Jux · 22/04/2017 12:47

Shakey I can see why one might think that it's possible to make cheese on toast by turning the toaster on its side, though. Just don't put too much cheese on and don't leave it too long or the bottom elements will burn that side of the toast.

OK, I can also see that there's more to it than that, but I'm now very tempted to try it just to see!

Original poster
TittyGolightly · 22/04/2017 13:01

The fire brigade strongly recommend you don't.

OP posts:
OP posts:
stillshewishedforcompany · 22/04/2017 15:35

Orlantina

There's a story - might be an 'urban myth' where biology students at Uni don't realise that wood comes from the air. It's somehow hard to associate the carbon dioxide in the air with wood.

Bingo! Knew I'd learn something new from this thread.

CheepAndOrm · 22/04/2017 15:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Orlantina · 22/04/2017 16:00

Speaking of toasters, don't put butter on the bread and then toast it. It doesn't work. I learnt that lesson when I was 10 Grin

DameSquashalot · 22/04/2017 16:32

I love I had a poor signal so I thought I was replying to a post from pages ago about Vit D. I realised that the most recent posts hadn't loaded after I posted. 😊

allegretto · 22/04/2017 19:57

Orlantina - but the documentary was about the Swiss spaghetti harvest - Italian spaghetti is completely different. Wink

Pooch - my children's doctor asked me whether my boy/girl twins were identical. The nurse at my women's health centre booked me in for a nuchal scan when I was pregnant despite the fact that they didn't do them. She admitted that she didn't actually know what they were!

Goldfishjane · 23/04/2017 10:13

I'm alone in the office with the really thick one tomorrow.
She's been off this Easter week so I guarantee endless election questions. She doesnt vote. the referendum result made her rage, but there was no point in voting still.

She's lived in London all her life, never heard of the IRA and only discovered terrorism in the Paris attacks. This resulted in endless "whyyyyyyyy" questions and "but what are government doing about it".

Ugh. When will tomorrow be over?!

The80sweregreat · 23/04/2017 11:15

Gold, maybe its time to just try to educate her a bit rather than get annoyed? I can see why your annoyed at her,a lot of people are just not interested. I can remember Len goodman being on the wright show and he asked him about the 2015 election , he just shrugged and said ' he wasnt interested in politics' - i was a bit stunned, but some people do think like that clearly! I know a few myself - not willing to engage, doesnt think it applies to them somehow what goes on or how it affects them. Maybe ignorance can be bliss? who knows.

Trills · 23/04/2017 11:58

I've had to look up who Len Goodman is. He's a ballroom dancer (ex?) and judge on Strictly, and looks quite old.

So there's nothing about him to say that he couldn't be one of the kind of people the thread is talking about.

If you're hosting a chat show, you need to have an interesting current events. If you're a guest on one you might have done well in your chosen career but still have no interest or knowledge in anything outside of it.

Swipe left for the next trending thread