There's a famous saying: "There is no such thing as a stupid question." Even astrophysicist Carl Sagan thought that "every question is a cry to understand the world." Yet the questions that the people in this list were asked would probably elicit an "I'm not mad, just disappointed" headshake even from Sagan.
A few months ago, one Redditor asked others to share the dumbest questions someone legitimately asked them. And, boy, did people not disappoint, as almost 8,000 netizens rushed to the comments to share some instances of others being dumb.
Bored Panda got in touch with the author of this thread, u/Isellkidsontemu. They kindly agreed to have a chat with us about what prompted them to post this question and whether there really is no such thing as a dumb question.
#1
A long time ago working retail, someone came up to me and asked me if I worked there, to which I replied “no ma’am I’m just a mannequin”, and she just straight up sighs and said to herself “not again Stacy, why do you always end up talking to inanimate objects. You gotta stop smoking so much, god!” and she just left. I hope Stacy’s ok.
Image credits: Curious_Phrao
#2
I was born with one arm (the right one), and people used to ask me all the time if I was left- or right-handed. I got tired of answering such a stupid question so I started answering left and let them figure it out.
Image credits: CrabFarts
#3
My brother-in-law's girlfriend was amazed that I had two brothers and no sisters and asked me how that is possible because she thought that humans gave birth in a boy/girl/boy/girl sequence and couldn't wrap her mind around how someone could give birth to 3 boys and no girls.
I'm not convinced that she is not some alien trying to pass off as a human and failing miserably.
Image credits: Chipdip88
The Redditor tells us that he came up with the question while one day just hanging out at home. They thought of such nonsensical questions as someone asking "Are you ok?" after they see a person falling. "[I] put it on r/AskReddit not expecting much engagement, then I wake up and my inbox is exploding! It was amazing," u/Isellkidsontemu recounts.
The Redditor doesn't agree with the famous saying that there's no such thing as a dumb question. "Some people may not know and that's okay, but there are some questions that people should just know, like two plus two is four," the Redditor says. "Unless you're in the first grade, you should know."
#4
I was at Walmart, a worker, young kid, asked about my hat. I told her I have cancer, and the chemo caused me to loose my hair. She looked at me square in the eye and said “Did you survive?”. It took everything in my power not to say “No, I didn’t. I’m actually dead. I’m a ghost.“.
Image credits: Tinkerfan57912
#5
I have waist length, deep purple hair.
A clerk at the beauty supply store said "Wow, your hair looks great! Did you dye it that way?"
No, I had a tragic grape juice accident when I was four and now it just grows this way.
Image credits: MissySedai
#6
Someone asked me to repeat the pronunciation of my last name and followed it up with, "Are you sure?".
Image credits: shaidyn
u/Isellkidsontemu says they'll probably be more cautious about asking questions after reading the many answers in the thread. "I am a little more cautious when asking questions, not accidentally saying something stupid and obvious. It's a wonder and I'm proud to have this account, never did I expect so many people to actually respond to that!"
The famous saying about dumb questions, perhaps, is more applicable to scientists. When you're in any kind of learning environment, asking questions is crucial. How else will you learn? There's apparently an African saying, "No one is without knowledge except he who asks no questions."
#7
My mother had dementia and the Social Worker asked me "" what relation are you to your mother ?".
Image credits: Sea_Pangolin3840
#8
I was showing a friend a telescope and pointing out all the constellations and planets I knew, and he legitimately asked me “Where’s earth?”.
Image credits: Any_Blueberry_2453
#9
"How long have you been twins?".
Image credits: Opihi59
Why are we afraid of asking questions? Because we worry we might look dumb. Naturally, no one wants to end up in a thread like this because of their intellectual failures, but sometimes we have to get off our proverbial high horse and accept that we don't know something.
Psychologist Paul E. Spector writes that "asking and answering questions can be an art and should be encouraged." People are reluctant to ask questions because they don't know what they don't know, or think they know something when they actually don't. A good instructor's job, according to him, is to make people comfortable enough so they're not afraid to ask stupid questions.
#10
I worked at Yellowstone National Park in the early 2010s and one of the tourists, a French lady, came up and asked me when the animals were going to be brought out for people to see.
Image credits: CapnPants666
#11
"Is that your real skin?"
I think she meant to ask if I'd had cosmetic work done, but I was quite alarmed. No. No, it's not. It's a backup skin that I carved out of a turnip.
Image credits: MerylSquirrel
#12
Used to be a whitewater raft guide. No end of dumb questions. One was "Do the rocks (in the river) go all the way to the bottom?" No, they're those special floating rocks wtf.
Also, "do we get out where we started?" Implying the river goes in a circle, like an amusement park ride.
Image credits: emerald-cupcakes
#13
I was at Niagara Falls with my British sister-in-law. We were looking at the section of the river right where the water goes over the falls. She asked me "Is the water very toxic, then?" I replied, "No, the great lakes is where southern Ontario gets it's drinking water. Why would you think it's toxic?" She replied, "Well, everyone who falls in the river here, dies." I had to explain that they died because they went over the Falls. This had never occurred to her.
Image credits: aethelberga
#14
Someone asked me once if bananas were vegan......their justification was "maybe they're tested on animals" *HUH*????
Image credits: trippyvegan
#15
I was on the phone with an American based hotel chain, looking to book a hotel in Seoul. The agent wasn’t familiar with that location, so I shared that it was in Korea.
“Kansas?”
“No, the country-Korea.”
*silence while typing*
“North or South Korea?”
I refrained from pointing out the likelihood of an American chain having a location in North Korea.
#16
"How did they train all the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies?".
Image credits: _AGuyInShades
#17
"Is it true you all live in igloos?"
Asked by someone from the deep south when I worked help desk for IBM in Canada. Dead serious.
Image credits: Strongit
#18
"If there's a deep end and a shallow end, how come the water is flat on top?" - my ex's sister, she was around 30 at the time.
#19
Do chinchillas poop?
My schoolmate at a university wanted one as a pet "because it's cute". She was 20 years old at the time. After she learned that chinchillas do indeed poop, she no longer wanted one. .
#20
Me and bunch of friends were talking about the discovery of atoms when one of them says something like: "It's amazing, How did they even know that they were called 'atoms'?!"
*Silence*.
#21
"What's the number to 911?".
Image credits: Ballsack2025
#22
When I worked at the zoo, I had a lady ask me if Tigers laid eggs. Context, there were rocks along the waterfall fed stream that ran through their exhibit and they could be mistaken for large eggs, and the tiger like to sit on them because they were always cold.
#23
At my old job several years ago, tourists from New York asked if they had to change their currency to buy things in here in Hawaii.
Image credits: Disciple_of_Cthulhu
#24
Someone asked if my kids, then aged 3 and 6, were twins.
Image credits: TragicaDeSpell
#25
"How can women pee with a tampon in?".
Image credits: CranberryBauce
#26
"What do you do for a living?"
It was at a restaurant. I was their server.
Image credits: itsamatterofattitude
#27
I was selling a party tent 20ft x 20ft. Some rando on marketplace asked me if it would fit in their backyard. Lol I don't know, never been to your backyard maybe measure if you have a 20ft x 20ft space?
Another time I was selling a black dress also on marketplace and some woman asked me if it would meet the dress code for her new waitresses job at chili's. How da f**k I'm supposed to know that, lady??
#28
I’m lactose intolerant “ so you can’t eat eggs “. Well I can’t actually but that’s because I’m also allergic to eggs.
Image credits: Skinnybet
#29
"Can you turn him so we don't see the scratch on his cheek?" Asked of me as we were reviewing the portrait photography of her son.
No ma'am, it's a picture. You should've asked this while we were in the camera room.
Image credits: Symnestra
#30
Them: "It would be really useful if the program could tell you if you've entered the wrong address; returned mail costs us a lot."
Me: "Well, we validate addresses against the Post Office API so we can be sure we're only entering addresses that legitimately exist-"
Them: "No, I know we do that, but sometimes people mistype and enter an address that exists but isn't theirs, like getting the number wrong so we send it to their neighbours or something. How long would it take you to add something to prevent that?"
Me: "To add a feature that knows when the address you've typed isn't the one you live at?"
Them: "Yes. How long?"
Me:"...in order to check whether the address you've entered is where you live, the software would need to know what address you live at, and if it knew that, it wouldn't be asking you to enter the address you live at. Do you see the chicken and egg problem?".
#31
„Why are the road signs in Germany in German?“.
#32
I'm a teacher who began my career teaching the blind. I cannot tell you how many people asked if the kids knew sign language.
They were not joking.
#33
How much garlic is in an onion?
#34
“Madagascar from the movie is a real place??”.
Image credits: EmperorBulbax
#35
My business partner got this one:
"What are you studying for"
"the bar exam"
"cool, bartending sounds fun!".
#36
It wasn't a question, but a statement that a well-educated friend made. She said, "I don't believe in dinosaurs." I replied, "How do you explain all the dinosaur bones they've found?" She couldn't answer.
#37
I'm from Alabama. I've been asked, among other things, if I had an outhouse, if I rode a horse around instead of driving, if I normally wore shoes when I went places, and if I owned a police dog specifically trained to attack black people.
#38
Someone asked me if my snake was an invertebrate and I had to sit there and explain that snakes are like 90% vertebrae.
#39
Going from England to Wales for a week away with my then girlfriend. She ask what we would do about food while we were there. I said we'd probably just pick something up from Tesco while we were there.
"Do they have supermarkets in Wales?" she asked.
#40
Was discussing not owning a car with a coworker
"Do you have your license?"
I was actively driving a work vehicle...in a job where you need a special license to even get hired.
When I side-eyed her she doubled down, "I know lots of people living in the city who don't have one!!".
#41
Why are you wearing sunglasses? It’s like 10 degrees out.
#42
After someone bragging they knew a lot about Catholicism, “Do Catholics believe in Jesus?”.
#43
I used to work in the UK and a colleague was travelling to the US in early July, I said something about her being there for 4th of July, Independence Day and she asked me "who did they get independence from?".
#44
I have a conjoined toe. The normal stupid question is "Does that make you swim faster?" They're conjoined, not webbed. The stupider version got asked when I was staying in a trailer park my dad lived in. One of the girls saw my foot and asked "Did you ever try just pouring hot water on it?".
#45
Not me, but one time some guy who was from the US, who had driven to the west coast of Canada in the summer with his snowboard, asked my grandma where the ski hill was while she was at the gas station... she was like "Uh sir... there is no snow this time of the year..." the american guy couldnt understand how there was no snow in summer... he was like "but this is Canada!"
Hell, even in winter these last couple years, there has been very little snow. I do recall hearing that the Whistler ski hill/resort is facing warming winters that will eventually shut it down forever.
#46
“How long have you been Swedish?”.
#47
Do you curl your hair every day? Why is your hair always curly?
... I dunno, it grows that way, man.
#48
I’m blind. Somebody asked me how I walk.
#49
I’m a cook at a bar, someone while reading our food menu said, “French toast?? Is that some kind of beer flavor?”.
#50
“What do Jewish people do?”
In response to me saying that Chinese food places are closed on Thanksgiving.
