The stupidest thing you can remember someone saying to you?

[alva]

This phenomenon happens all the time here in Shanghai: I (a large white person) point at something, e.g. a vegetable, and ask someone in Chinese "What do you call that?" Then they give the answer in English, e.g. "A carrot."

Guess what that person must think of you

[mindseye]

Originally posted by alva

This phenomenon happens all the time here in Shanghai: I (a large white person) point at something, e.g. a vegetable, and ask someone in Chinese "What do you call that?" Then they give the answer in English, e.g. "A carrot."

Guess what that person must think of you

Perhaps a sha gua ("melonhead").

[JohnT]

Lot's of stupid things were said to me, damn thing is I can't remember any of them. I did a thread like this a while back though: "What is the dumbest thing you've ever heard" and, since the mod went a bit off-topic, I feel that I can too:

On a Weather Channel/Discovery/something show about tornados, a man was being interviewed after suffering through a tornado. Now, I admit the guy might've been in shock - the situation around this quote is a bit hazy in my memory and he might've been interviewed very soon after he went through this traumatic experience... or it might've been a month later. Anyway, in the midst of this man talking about his experience, he lets out a little frustration at what he feels is a common urban legend regarding tornados:

"It sounded like no freight train I've ever heard. There was no 'click-clack', no 'whoo-whoo!', nothing!"

[JohnT]

My brother (who is slightly off-kilter) actually asked my wife, a stay-at-home mother, the following question:

"Do you work or do anything other than staying around the house?"

[Spiffor]

That's gotta be :

"Beligians aren't monsters, their tentacles are beautiful"

OK, maybe not the most stupid, but definitely the most absurd

[rah]

I once asked an employee when she was due, and she replied that she had the baby three weeks prior. DOH.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by rah
I once asked an employee when she was due, and she replied that she had the baby three weeks prior. DOH.

Well, I remember having asked a friend, just after she gave birth: "and how long will you remain fat ?"

[Jac de Molay]

The university I work at conducts random student interviews for the college newspaper. When asked who the vice-president of the US was, this girl replied with absolute certainty it was colin powell.

Maybe not the stupidest thing I've heard, but jeez.....

[JohnT]

Other things said to me or in front of me:

Student, asking our Chinese stat teacher about his language prowess: "When did you learn to speak American?"

21 year old roommate upon seeing an anteater on a nature program: "Holy shiite, I thought those things existed only in those cartoons!"

Same roommate: "Who did we fight in the Revolutionary War?" My answer: "What language do we speak?" His response: "What the hell does that have to do with anything?!?" (I don't know if he thought we spoke "American.")

[JohnT]

Found on CNN.com in an article about how the film "Bruce Almighty" gave out an actual phone number.

"In Longmont, Colorado, the Colorado Radio Network's nine lines started lighting up Monday with God callers, a good number of whom actually seemed to think they found a direct line to the Lord, according to Ron Nickel, the network's senior vice president.

" 'God, I really need to talk to you,' one woman said in a message. 'I need to repent because I've cheated on my husband five times, but I guess all of us people who are prostitutes eventually cheat on our husbands' "

Huh, ya think?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/29/offbeat.almighty.uproar.ap/index.html

[Eli]

"Britain is on a island?! Ohhh, so that's what the "British Islands" thingie is all about..." (slightly paraphrased during translation)

My father, while watching TV, couple years after a week long trip to London.

What can I say... I'm surrounded by ignorance.

[JohnT]

And born of it, apparently.

[DAVOUT]

Severe ignorance is not so funny. I like better comments about it, such as this one regarding two journalists : their ignorance is encyclopaedic.

[Mao]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Yo Mao, which uni did you end up with?

haha...take a guess...I'm at the college where the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is...

[orange]

Mao sighting