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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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.

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

OP posts:

Thread gallery

MuncheysMummy · 19/04/2017 22:05

Wow I know someone like her OP! A girl I know believes but not limited to..chickens have no internal organs as there is no room for them,the cavity inside (a supermarket raw dead one!) is where the eggs are! No animal smaller than a cat has infact got an internal organs as they just wouldn't fit to be fair this girl was a teenager who also got run over by a Milkfloat! the world slowest speed knock down ever! The funniest part was the guy who owned it lived on her street and was on his way home from his round to recharge it so was crawling along!

Lovelilies · 19/04/2017 22:07

I thought hippos were pink, until I went to Kenya aged 17

Brighteyes27 · 19/04/2017 22:07

Leave her alone everyone has different strengths and talents not all are academic or much general knowledge but they may have other strengths talents

Orlantina · 19/04/2017 22:07

Going back to the op, I bet a lot of people don't know where as much about fruit,veg and meat that they maybe should?

If you showed someone tea in a bag, I wonder how many people would know it came from tea leaves on a bush?

Or link flour to wheat crops....

GrandDesespoir · 19/04/2017 22:07

It's all very well excusing someone's lack of general knowledge by saying they might not have learnt it in school, but acquisition of knowledge doesn't have to be passive, particularly post school. I'm sure the competitors on University Challenge haven't been taught everything they know.

And if you never read a newspaper, even on-line, you're in danger of finding yourself under the erroneous impression that there is such a thing as a priminister, or other similar faux pas.

MrsJamesMathews · 19/04/2017 22:09

*If you showed someone tea in a bag, I wonder how many people would know it came from tea leaves on a bush?

Or link flour to wheat crops....*

Is that a joke?

Not a single person I know, including my 5yo, doesn't know these facts.

Kittymum03 · 19/04/2017 22:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EssentialHummus · 19/04/2017 22:10

I have three degrees and only recently clocked that temperatures exist above 100 degrees Celsius and yes, I know that they're higher than that even on my bloody oven. I just figured that boiling point was it.

user1483992574 · 19/04/2017 22:11

I worked with a lady who came in halfway through the film Independence Day! Thought it was the news , hid behind the sofa & phoned her dad cos she was worried she wouldn't be able to get into work as we'd been invaded by aliens 👽!!!!

Coverup890 · 19/04/2017 22:12

@GrandDesespoir I guess that was aimed at me im using my phone so didn't notice the spelling mistake we can't all be perfect!

Curlyshabtree · 19/04/2017 22:12

I have a lovely colleague who didn't believe that Scotland was a real country. And that hummus is a vegetable! She is totally lovely and degree educated.

Whatsforu · 19/04/2017 22:12

Give her a break we all have different strengths/weaknesses. Op you have too much time on your hands. Why does it matter

Worriedaboutsmear · 19/04/2017 22:13

Up until last year I thought that shellfish was a fish in its own right rather than a selection of crustaceans. I found out when I was pregnant and after having the following conversation with a guy in the office:

Colleague: yeah there's loads you can't eat while you're pregnant. I'd really struggle staying away from shellfish.

Me: Would you; I haven't tried shellfish. I really like prawns though and apparently I can't have that

Colleague: Prawns are shellfish. Shellfish isn't a fish

Me: oh er, right. (Awkward laugh)

Orlantina · 19/04/2017 22:13

Not a single person I know, including my 5yo, doesn't know these facts

I think that if you asked people where tea or flour came from and then asked more details, there would be some / quite a few people who aren't aware. Just my perception.

ArgyMargy · 19/04/2017 22:14

I don't think Scotland is a country, actually.

Orlantina · 19/04/2017 22:16

I don't think Scotland is a country, actually

Don't tell Nicola Sturgeon that....

It's a country and we live in a Union of countries.

SarcasmMode · 19/04/2017 22:18

Some people aren't that bright - not everyone is set out to be.

If she's a nice person then should it really matter?

It's not like she isn't aware of how to use a fork or something.

MorrisZapp · 19/04/2017 22:20

Thick people do exist. I've worked with heaps of them. They didn't have 'different strengths' or amazing hobbies to educate me about, they just knew fuck all and didn't care.

I know it's cool on here to be all 'oh but I'm so thick too! Despite my PhD and my top ranking career, I have nooooooooo common sense at all! Tinkly laugh' but no, that's not the kind of person OP is talking about.

informedchoice · 19/04/2017 22:22

There are people who don't know where flour comes from? I refuse to believe it.

I thought it was bad enough when someone didn't know the difference between straw and hay.

klondikecookie · 19/04/2017 22:22

If ignorance doesn't matter, why do we all send our children to school?

allegretto · 19/04/2017 22:23

I may have once thought capers were tiny fish. In my defence they taste a bit anchovyish.

jmh740 · 19/04/2017 22:23

I recently went shopping in asda asked a member of staff where the courgettes were he didn't know what one was so he asked another member of staff they didn't know either.

buddy79 · 19/04/2017 22:24

Ha yes I think just being totally unaware of things is nowt to be ashamed of /critical of, as long as you know you don't know! I, for example, have an MA and generally don't think I am too thick, but asked DH if French onion soup was made from French onions. I did realise, even as the words came out of my mouth, that I was getting something very, very wrong and had a good chuckle at myself.
I also have 2 similarly MA-qualified friends who
a) didn't realise corn on the cob is the same thing as sweetcorn.
b) thought Yasser Arafat was a rap artist.

allegretto · 19/04/2017 22:25

People have different skills. My husband is a professor. I found out last weekend he doesn't know how a lighter works and still can't do it even after a ten minute lesson.

HoldBackTheRain · 19/04/2017 22:26

Your post sounds very judgemental OP, and quite superior - why did you feel the need to tell us that you wouldn't know anything about TOWIE or I'm A Celebrity? To make you sound like a better person?

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