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AIBU?

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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
SecretNutellaFix · 19/04/2017 20:49

Consider that in the US where certain pesticides are in use, bee numbers continue to drop whereas in Europe where these particular chemicals are not in use/ banned there has been a slight recovery in bee population shows a very definite cause to the decline in bee numbers.

SailAwayWithMeHoney · 19/04/2017 20:50

Isn't pregnancy nearer 10 months than 9 Confused

thenewaveragebear1983 · 19/04/2017 20:51

4 weeks is not 'a calendar month' either.
Calendar month refers to things that are, for example, paid monthly? Even though the month in question may have 28, 29, 30 or 31 days. Such as paying rent of 600 per calendar month. Paying rent weekly means some months you'd pay 4 weeks and some 5.

LanaorAna1 · 19/04/2017 20:52

The OP's being truthful - not unkind. You're the ones putting a negative spin on the co-worker's general knowledge.

Everything I would expect from someone working in, um, education.

SnickersWasAHorse · 19/04/2017 20:52

In fairness through the first two weeks of pregnancy are before you've even had any sex. I've never worked that out.

BarbarianMum · 19/04/2017 20:55

The "bee thing" is not a myth. Hmm

SnickersWasAHorse · 19/04/2017 20:56

I took a road trip from Kent to Bristol and discovered that all these places were in the West

Has Kent moved then?

Mummyoflittledragon · 19/04/2017 20:57

Nofunking

We are not doing cows a favour. The newborn calves are generally ripped away from their mothers at a day old and they are both are heartbroken. The calves are either slaughtered immediately or kept to become dairy cows and can develop some distressing behaviours due to lack of bonding with their mothers.

MrsTerryPratchett · 19/04/2017 20:58

Early people didn't generally live in caves. So you're not doing that well either...

Original poster
TittyGolightly · 19/04/2017 20:59

She asked why cave men were called cave men. I kinda had to mention caves.

OP posts:
PetalMettle · 19/04/2017 21:00

When I was a teenager I thought If boys got erections and they didn't come it was painful/bad for them.
I was a popular teenager

Chavelita · 19/04/2017 21:00

These threads never end well, OP. There is a weird culture of glorifying ignorance in this country, as if the fact that you have a basic knowledge of how the menstrual cycle works/why Easter isn't the same date every year/can point to Berlin on a map means you are a shrivelled, heartless egghead who runs over toddlers on your way to compete in Brain of Britain. Yet this coincides with an obsession with Ofsted reports and 'good schools'.

I say this as someone who second-marked essays today which informed me of the following:

'Shakespeare wrote about the Victorian times'
'This novella was written in 1902, and is set during World War 1.'

and another one got confused between Presbyterianism and Paganism. Grin
'

neveradullmoment99 · 19/04/2017 21:01

So what? Why should you bother about it?

MrsTerryPratchett · 19/04/2017 21:02

Yeah, but they didn't. Did they? Why are American Indians called 'Indians'? They shouldn't be; it's completely wrong. The answer isn't, "because they live in India".

user1492458803 · 19/04/2017 21:02

What is a kipper if not a fish?!?!

user1492458803 · 19/04/2017 21:03

I've googled kipper and they are fish? Why aren't they fish? I'm even more confused...

informedchoice · 19/04/2017 21:03

A kipper is not a type of fish ffs!

Isitjustmeorisiteveryoneelse · 19/04/2017 21:05

I dunno but I once employed a junior in my dept who didn't know who Elvis was.

pictish · 19/04/2017 21:06

A kipper is a smoked mackerel, so obviously still a fish...the poster means that she thought there was a species of fish called a kipper.

informedchoice · 19/04/2017 21:07

What!?! It's herring! HERRING

SnickersWasAHorse · 19/04/2017 21:07

A kipper is no more a fish than a pork chop is a pig.

Winterc00kie · 19/04/2017 21:08

send her out for some skirting board ladders, a glass hammer and tartan paint xx

Meekonsandwich · 19/04/2017 21:08

Wow. Just wow. I really worry when people don't know basic facts of life!
What else doesn't she know?!

We are NOT doing cows a bloody favour. Breeding them sothey produce a huge amount of milk, then forcing them to get pregnant, then taking their babies away and taking that milk is not doing them a kindness!!!
Breeding sheep so their coats grow until they over heat and die, then saying "but we're doing them a favour by shearing them!" NO! they were fine before we messed with them.
It amazes me how many people (even females) don't know they don't pee from their vagina!!!!!

A gem from my brother:
"Where do you get vitamin D from brother?"
"Probably asda. "

AT 17 YEARS OLD.

Yes he failed his exams.

Crapuccino · 19/04/2017 21:10

Oh. Pictish. Um...

pictish · 19/04/2017 21:10

Yes...or herring. Kipper refers to the kippering of it...splitting, salting, smoking etc...
This can be applied to any oily fish...usually mackerel or herring.

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