We live in a curious world, and there are a couple of questions that every human would be absolutely thrilled to know the answers to; where did we come from, how many universes are there, and is there a plan for us, or is the future yet to be written?
“There is no such thing as a stupid question” – a common phrase that suggests that just because one person may know less than others, they should not be afraid to ask questions, even if they sound rather odd.
“What is the dumbest question someone legitimately asked you?” – this online user took it to one of the most well-liked Reddit communities to find out what kinds of foolish questions the online members have gotten. The post has received nearly 35K upvotes and 31.4K worth of entertaining comments.
More info: Reddit
#1
One day one of my students said “Ew, I have to work today.” To which I replied, “So do I.”
He looked at me and asked, honestly, “Oh really? Where do you work?”
“Here…I work here…right where I am standing. I don’t do this as a service to your parents.”
Image source: BrainPainn, saimad
#2
American: “Do you have airplanes in South America?”
Me: “No, I got here swinging on vines that hang from our trees”
Image source: throwawayventing2018, Jason O’Halloran
#3
“Don’t you find it stupid that Obama is the only president without a last name?”
#4
Boss: “Could you print out that file, scan it, and email it to me?”
Me: “I could just email it to you.”
Boss: …
Image source: -SkaffenAmtiskaw-, Jamison Judd
#5
Going through the border — from Canada into the U.S.:
Border Guard: “What’s your citizenship?”
Me: [hands over passport, which notes my birthplace as Vancouver, British Columbia] “Canadian.”
Border Guard: “No, what’s your citizenship?”
Me: *louder* “I’m Canadian.”
Border Guard: *yelling* “What’s your citizenship?!”
Me: “I don’t know what you’re asking me!”
Border Guard: “Where were you born? Was it Colombia?”
Me: “British Columbia is a province in Canada.”
Border Guard: *waves me through*
Image source: joceyposse, Tom Purves
#6
“Are you gay?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Hm I don’t know Jerry, just not feelin’ it today.
Image source: vBHSW, http://underclassrising.net/
#7
My friend once asked, “What if they made a sea world but instead it’s centered around the land?”
I responded with “So basically, a zoo?”
Image source: Legitimate_Luke, [MGM]
#8
My wife at the time saw the headline “Buffalo buried in 5 feet of snow” (I don’t remember the exact measurement). She asked “Why don’t they just dig the poor guy out?” There was a picture of the city under the headline.
#9
What nationality are you?
*canadian*
No, i mean, what nationality?
*ummm, do you mean heritage? Polish I guess*
No no, listen, na-tional-ity
*I don’t know what you’re asking?*
Whispers: Nationality, like, are you white, black, etc?
*just look at me, I’m white as snow, and that’s not nation…*
Cool I didn’t want to assume anything.
Image source: billbapapa, Dumphasizer
#10
Having a conversation about traveling.
Me: I’ve always wanted to road trip up to Alaska and see the northern lights
Her: (looking at me like I’m a moron*) oh yeah? How are you going to drive to Alaska??
Me: in my car…
Her: You can’t DRIVE there
And then I realized she thought Alaska was an island… I had to explain to her that although Alaska and Hawaii were always in little boxes next to the mainland of USA maps that doesn’t mean they’re both islands.
10 years later I married her…
Image source: Drewkin13, Jay Cross
#11
My eyes are two different colors, and the question I’m most often asked about them is , “Did you know your eyes are two different colors?” I’m amused when someone asks me whether I see different colors out of each eye, or – even better – whether I “see in 3D.”
Image source: MelilDeMolihua, Keith Kissel
#12
Isn’t it a shame unicorns went extinct?
This person was an adult and thought unicorns exists during medieval times.
Image source: laughing_cat, ebrkut
#13
(I used to work at a bakery) a customer once asked me:
“When the bread isn’t warm anymore, that means it’s not fresh anymore, so I can have it for free right?”
-_- “no”
Image source: Bcause789, sylvar
#14
Not anything super mind-boggling, but I worked as a server at a infamous “Italian” restaurant during college. Here’s my interaction with a guest one evening:
G: “I’d like to order the spaghetti with marinara sauce, but can I get fettuccine noodles instead?”
M: “Sure thing.”
G: “Oh, and I’d like to please substitute the marinara with Alfredo sauce. And please add chicken.”
M: “…. I would have to charge you for the chicken Alfredo, then.” (Note there was a few dollars in price difference between the two dishes, Alfredo being more expensive).
G: “But I ordered the spaghetti with marinara.”
I legitimately had to argue with this person for few moments as to why I couldn’t magically substitute out the entire entree for a different one with no price difference. Guest ended up being super crabby for the remainder of the time and I’m fairly certain didn’t tip at all.
Image source: architectmillenial, MattCC716
#15
A coworker at the library was asked for aerial photos of the Colosseum in Rome.
Before it was in ruins.
Image source: enfanta, Philip Kahn
#16
“So Trump is our president, right? Does that mean he’s in charge of our state or the whole world? Sorry but I’ve never understood this whole president thing…”
This was asked to me by a fellow high school senior… in civics class.
Image source: dogfobia, Matt Johnson
#17
A girl asked me if honey came from bears. I’ll never forget it.
Image source: GxRandy, Don Hankins
#18
my own sister asked me how we were related to my grandparents
Image source: noahtherichman, Jan Vlugt
#19
Not me, but overheard someone asking a restaurant server “Your coupon says it’s valid 7 days a week, does this include weekends?”
Image source: ihatepeasoup, Joe Lanman
#20
My stepmom once asked if islands float around in the ocean.
My brother burst out laughing, and I just looked flatly at my dad and said, “You married this woman.” We still give her grief about it.
Image source: MightyBobTheMighty, Michael Spiller
#21
If penguins need water to survive, doesn’t that means they’re fish?
Image source: synalgo_12, Neil Turner
#22
What’s the biggest planet on earth?
Image source: ieatpotatoesforlunch, Kevin Gill
#23
I was weighing a patient, and she asked me if it measured in Celsius.
Image source: Jamochajon, PebblePicJay
#24
Had a customer ask if she could pay her bill over the phone. I asked what kind of credit card…. cash. She wanted to pay cash over the phone.
Image source: busykim, Jacqui Brown
#25
On a ski lift
“At what elevation do deer turn into elk?”
Image source: TheFatherIxion, Rob Lee
#26
How long did it take you to drive from Australia – *to America*? I’ve been asked this twice.
I wish I could say I had a witty response, but my brain froze as it tried to compute the stupidity of the question.
*ETA: No offense to Americans, just these two particular idiots. I’ve lived in the U.S. most of my life.*
Image source: ecodrew, Nathan Hughes Hamilton
#27
Is Cherry Vanilla Coke made with cherries and vanilla mixed together, or is it made with vanilla cherries?
*vanilla cherries???*
Image source: anon
#28
“Does Halloween ever fall on Friday the 13th?”
Took my buddy a few seconds combined with our WTF stares to realize what he had just asked
EDIT: My bad everyone. Didn’t even consider the fact that other countries don’t celebrate Halloween. ELI5 Halloween is a set holiday that always falls on October 31st
Image source: YoungMozartinaGoKart, Kevin Dooley
#29
My cousin bought a map from a nearby fancy store for tourists. After perusing it for no less than two hours, she asked me, “How does this north-south stuff work? The side I’m facing is north, right? And if I turn right, north also turns right, no?”
She was 20.
Image source: small_big, Anthony
#30
If you had a heart transplant, would your memories go away?
Image source: Doffy-Mingo, Josey
#31
I used to work at Disney World and a question I would get on the daily is “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?”
Image source: AlexVanderspek94, Kevin Gaudin
#32
Was asked to a friend of mine who worked in a book shop.
“Excuse me. Do these stairs go up?”
Image source: Draculasmooncannon, kanonn
#33
Do you actually believe in dinosaurs?
Image source: Victor_Saltzpyre, David Kryzaniak
#34
“Do you see in panoramic view?”
I’m Chinese…
Image source: verigud
#35
I wear a headscarf, and someone once asked me if I had ears.
Image source: airbenderx, Beverley Goodwin
#36
When I moved back to Florida from Scotland a girl I was hitting on at a bar asked me how long a drive that was.
Image source: Kilen13, Tobias Begemann
#37
When I was in America in 2012, a man asked me, completely seriously, if we had cellphones in Norway…
Image source: anon
#38
I used to be a high school college prep teacher. One semester, I had quite a number of students who said they wanted to become surgeons. So one day I showed the class a neat video of a surgeon slicing open a grape with a scalpel and then stitching it back up with this new, technologically advanced pair of robotic arm things. The video was met with many oohs and aahs, and when it was over a hand shot up. I’ll never forget her question.
“What was wrong with the grape?”
(EDIT: Haha okay so people keep saying she was kidding, and the joke just went over my head since I’m old. Wouldn’t change the fact that it was a dumb question. Now I’m 99% sure she was being serious. That or she’s so good an actress that she committed to an entire semester of low grades and embarrassing questions and her friends having to explain things to her and her chuckling embarrassingly at her ditzy self. Now, I said ditzy. I don’t believe any of my students are even a little bit “dumb”. But the question certainly was, and I can with good conscience call it that since on many occasions she spent the entire time talking with her friends only to look up halfway through and just toss her input without gathering much context. In this case she looked up and saw people randomly operating on a grape.
Also, no, she wasn’t blonde. She had black hair. No, English was not her first language (which I’m sure contributed to her lack of focus in the class). Yes she passed the class because she was, in fact, a good kid and quite smart. Just needed a bit of help. She’d make a great surgeon someday if she tried.
Image source: Guacaceratops, Mingo Hagen
#39
One of my good friends builds computers. He sold me the components of his old desktop and he brought it over to my house so he could transfer them to a new case for me and then build his new computer. It was taking a while and my mom was agitated that he was there so long and asked “is what you’re doing even legal?”
Image source: ThirdWorldPelican
#40
Is that an uppercase “space bar”?
Image source: jiaco
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