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38 Examples Of Grown-Ups Who Needed Explanations About Something Absolutely Basic, As Told Online
Interview With Expert
The great ancient philosopher Socrates is credited with the famous phrase: "I know that I know nothing." Well, this could very well be trolling, given the sage's character, as recounted by his contemporaries. However, it's more likely simply a hint that nothing in the world can be considered completely obvious.
At different times and in different places on our planet, there have been numerous views on what constitutes basic knowledge. From basic prayer texts to multiplication tables, from social etiquette to children's tongue twisters - however, as it turns out, there's always an adult who doesn't know something you consider elementary. Want examples? Voila - here are dozens of proofs!
More info: Reddit
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#1
I've had so many conversations with adults who do not understand how government benefits work or hell how their own medicaid works and I have talked to a few *that didn't even know they were on medicaid*. They never questioned why they never paid for doctors visits and medication while also not paying anything for health insurance.
I have seen someone ask for 10k in rental assistance, thinking that their local human services office can just hand over 10 grand to everyone who asks.
They also deny they are in the exact same position as people they loudly complain are freeloaders taking advantage of a system. So it's alright that you get food stamps, daycare assistance, medicaid, section 8 and gas vouchers but God forbid someone you decide you don't like gets half that.
WindySwede 2 months ago
"Well I like those things, just for me, just not any others! I'm not paying for those!"
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#2
My ex was convinced that tampons were inserted and then you yank the cord like a f*****g rip cord and it inflates up in there like a g*****n lifeboat. He really truly believed that with all his stupid, idiot heart.
#3
Recently I had to explain to an American friend that a US Tariff is a US tax placed on items imported into the USA. The buyer of the item (importer) has to pay that tax to the IRS. This tax must be passed on to the consumer by the importer. Somehow he had the idea the exporting country paid the tax. Zero clue how an adult could get such an a*s backwards idea.
A few days ago, a thread appeared on the AskReddit community where the netizen u/latica_elf asked: "What's the most unbelievable 'wait, you don't get this?' moment you've had with another adult?" Well, in just a couple of days, it garnered over 5K upvotes with nearly 3K various comments.
And you know what? As it turns out, even things that 99% of the world's population would think are common knowledge since preschool can sometimes baffle even adults.
From which direction the sun rises to the number of letters in the English alphabet and the peculiarities of their own bodies - please welcome to this selection of awkward stories about "basic" knowledge made for you by Bored Panda!
#4
A person that didn't want to get solar panels because they were worried if too many people had them it would use up all the sun.
#5
When I was a teenager my mum was convinced I was doing d***s. I needed to wee and even though I was only in the bathroom for like 30 seconds I came out and she was like “Aha! Got you!!!”
She said she knew I was doing d***s in the bathroom because I was on my period and I didn’t have time to change my tampon while I was in there. I told her I hadn’t changed my tampon because it had only been in for like an hour. Then she asked how I had peed without changing my tampon.
That’s how I learned my mum didn’t know that the urethra was seperate from the v****a. I told her I just move the string out the way. She was adamant that it’s impossible to pee with a tampon in because then the pee wouldn’t come out. She was about 50 years old at that time. She still didn’t believe they were different holes. I had to go onto the computer and pull up a diagram and she still refused to believe it, stating “I think I would know if I had two different holes!”
Anyway a few years later when I DID start doing d***s she had no idea.
#6
I once had a co-worker who was quite religious and, in all honesty, not overly blessed with intelligence, tell me she'd had to re-homed her cat. The cat was an unaltered female cat who was allowed outside and got pregnant for a second time. I asked her why she didn't have the cat fixed, and she said she shouldn't have to, the cat should know better than to be out "whoring around," and she would not have an immoral cat in her home. I started to try to gently explain how cats work, but then decided the cat was better off elsewhere.
ETA: I told my partner about this post and was told I need to add one more fun detail to this story. The cat's name was Angel. Really. Angel, and she was a white kitty.
Okay, so what exactly constitutes "obvious" knowledge? For example, considering that some people may never encounter the need for certain school-learned knowledge throughout their lives. Like, if someone isn't interested in literature and has worked their entire life in, let’s say, food service or delivery, how basic can knowledge of Shakespeare's plays be considered for them?
Or let’s take geography, for instance. A couple of centuries ago, a young nobleman in a satirical comedy said that it was an "ignoble" science because you could always call a coachman, tell him where you need to go, and he'll take you there. The comedy, of course, was mocking that character.
But that was a long time ago, and today we have online maps, GPS navigation, and a whole bunch of other services that can arguably replace geography. So is it any wonder someone doesn't know the capital of France or China?
#7
Just after Christmas 2023, my now-late husband and I were at the airport, returning from visiting my parents who had loaded us up with gifts. The gate agent informed us that our bag was overweight, and we would be charged something like an additional $200 for it. Realizing that one of the gifts from my parents was a large duffel bag, I asked how much it would cost to add a second bag. Only $50! Great! We’ll step out of line, reshuffle some of the load to the second bag, and be back in a few minutes with two bags of appropriate weight.
My normally bright, well-educated (and kind) husband could not wrap his head around this. Kept looking at and talking to me like I was an absolute idiot for suggesting this. The desk agent tried to explain it too. I was just like “I literally don’t understand how you don’t understand that taking things out of a bag makes it lighter.” The charge is for each individual bag, not the cumulative total. Eventually he agreed (rudely) but didn’t seem like he ever got it.
By mid-January, his behavior had become so erratic (and often mean) that I confronted him, believing he was having a manic episode. I’ll spare the rest of the details but he was dead by March of 2025.
If there is a moral to this story, it’s that I’d like to see more research done on the brain impairment caused by mania and bipolar disorder. There does seem to be some similarity in symptoms to Alzheimer’s but it doesn’t appear that much research has been done in this avenue. .
#8
I was standing outside my office building with a coworker just chit chatting when a gentleman walked past us with a dog wearing a “Service Dog” vest. She immediately said “thank you!” fairly enthusiastically. The guy didn’t break stride but had a confused look on his face. I asked her what that was about and she thought the vest on the dog indicated that he was “in the service” as in served our country. She was thanking the dog.
#9
Back in the olden days, when checks (or cheques for my Continental friends) were commonly used, I had a signed check in my desk drawer for a delivery I was expecting. I foolishly didn’t have anything filled out, relying on my employee to fill it out when the delivery arrived. Unfortunately, her b*m of a boyfriend found it first, and the first thought in his head that could only hold one thought at a time, was “Free Money!”
He was confounded when he discovered that - gasp! - cancelled checks were returned to the owner. He had made it out to himself, cashed it, and was shocked - shocked, I tell you - when he was arrested.
Jumping Jellyfishes 2 months ago (edited)
Really...? We're censoring "b*m" now? Methinks the site name needs to be changed to "Prudish Panda".
But no, general erudition and knowledge, no matter how useful online services may be, will always come in handy. Even if you're already used to asking ChatGPT about literally everything. At the very least, to verify the AI's answers. Moreover, your own knowledge gives you a much broader perspective and a level of expertise in a wide variety of areas of life.
For example, this dedicated article at Owlcation claims that having broad knowledge actually helps anyone, at least, start conversations easily, make more informed decisions, keep up with new trends, and generally communicate better with other people around you.
Basically, if you're well-versed in a variety of topics, you'll at least be able to communicate more easily in a wide variety of companies. And that's not to mention potential career advancement.
"Employees who possess a broad understanding of concepts and trends in their industry can contribute to discussions, innovate solutions, and collaborate effectively with colleagues," this post on Alooba reasonably states.
#10
My sister-in-law's boyfriend (much younger than me - Gen Z) thought postboxes were decorative/historical - he was astonished to hear that you could actually put letters into them and someone would come and take them out to deliver them to the recipient.
#11
I’m a construction worker. I was out in a field inspecting for a dirt crew placing storm pipes in the ground, and one of the guys looks up at the sky in awe. He says “Holy s**t, guys… the moon is in the sky during the day!”
He was dead serious; he thought the moon only came out at night. This is a man with a wife and kids. Maybe he never looked at the sky growing up? He had forgotten about the eclipse that was a few weeks before it. The whole crew gave him c**p all day, pointing out obvious stuff like clouds and s**t. “Dude; how can a cloud come out; it’s a sunny day?!”.
Serena Myers 2 months ago
Yes, but how can you see the moon during the day when you can't see the sun at night??? Please don't take my comment seriously!
#12
The amount of people that don’t understand how a graduated tax system works hurts my brain. No your entire salary doesn’t get taxed at a higher rate because you went just over the limit into a higher tax bracket.
Apatheist Account2 2 months ago
This is always a dead giveaway for people who've never been in the higher tax bracket.
By the way, acquiring new knowledge, among other things, can also stimulate our brain, help it develop, and prevent various age-related diseases.
"I've seen medical studies time and again confirming that training our minds and memory at any age is quite effective in preventing the development of various diseases, such as dementia," says Valery Bolgan, a historian and editor-in-chief of the Intent news agency from Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment.
At the very least, as the expert claims, various brain training exercises can actually reduce the likelihood of such diseases, and that's already a great thing. Learning new skills, new languages, various intellectual games, and even simply reading books - all of this not only helps us gain knowledge but also truly contributes to a better quality of our lives.
#13
Smart guy I worked with. Had an MBA from a major university. Told me he didn't believe in evolution. Said he had seen single cell animals under a microscope, which proved that they're still here and didn't evolve into us. Dude thought things evolve like f*****g Pokemon.
Doug Moyer 2 months ago
If my family is descended from Germans, how come there are still Germans? Huh? Huh?!?
#14
I just had to explain credit cards to my 73-year-old mother. She didn't know that by paying only the minimum balance, she was racking up interest charges. She also didn't know that you could pay a credit card balance in full each month. Like she didn't know that was allowed. It certainly explains a lot of my upbringing.
Kelly Scott 2 months ago
I was never taught anything about credit cards and made a lot of mistakes, resulting in a bankruptcy. My mother got all snotty with me once and asked, "WHO would give YOU a credit card?" I almost backhanded her across her face and told her if she had done the bare minimum of parenting, including talking to us kids about finances, I wouldn't have had the problems I did, so she needed to shut down the snarkiness NOW.
#15
I used to work with attorneys (I’m in law school now, so I guess I still do, but f**k this old job I had) and was FLOORED by the number of attorneys who don’t know how email works. Like, I’d explain I was emailing them a link that would take them exactly where they needed to go and they’d put me on hold to get their secretary to come operate their email for them.
Rick Murray 2 months ago
I had a mechanic like that. He could strip down a 2CV blindfolded, but anything more high tech than a fax machine and he was lost. Had to pay him cash or cheques because the card reader...sitting in the corner never plugged in. He got scared off a thing he already despised when a customer screamed at him for trying to charge twenty five grand (he just missed the decimal point). Oh, and if you needed breakdown, you had to call his wife on the landline and she would go and yell directions in his ear. Mobile phones didn't exist in his reality.
We do hope we've at least partially convinced you that knowledge is very useful, even in our contemporary world, where artificial intelligence is ready to do everything for us, even to learn something new. In any case, please feel free to read these stories and maybe add your own if you have something similar under your belt. After all, ain’t reading new, interesting tales also incredibly useful?
#16
My American friend didn't quite understand the concept of other countries knowing and speaking different languages.
"You're Swedish right? Do you speak English with your family?"
"N-no, I speak Swedish with my family."
"Ah... How did you learn Swedish?"
What followed was a bizarre explanation about native tongues, overlapping languages, and earth-shattering realization that "American" just like "Mexican" and "Brazilian" aren't languages, and that most houses in Europe are older than the United States.
WindySwede 2 months ago
Haha, Swedish is just something we do with tourists and when impersonating The Swedish Chef!
#17
I was in the Air Force for 10 years. Most important documents in the Air Force are PDFs. I lost track of how many times I had to show someone CTRL-F. It was like watching cavemen discover fire.
#18
Oh boy. Had to tell a principal what “d***o” meant. A kid called another kid that on our way outside, and I pulled him aside and he told me he didn’t know what it means, so I just told him we don’t call people other words, especially when we don’t know what it means.
My principal saw, asked me what happened, and I told her the situation. She said “what’s so bad about that”? Apparently, she thought it had something to do with an armadillo.
#19
Freshman college kids renting apartment. Mice problem (big U.S. city). Both Exterminator and I told them to keep food in fridge or hard plastic or metal container. Make it difficult for mice to find food and they’ll go elsewhere. We also put out a couple of traps.
Go back a week later and they had an OPEN box of cereal next to a mousetrap. Still experiencing mice. When I reiterated putting food in hard containers to deter mice, they thought they would catch the one or two mice with cereal and be done. Had to explain there are MILLIONS of mice in the city and catching one was not going to solve the problem. 🤦🏻♀️.
#20
Had to explain to an ex-boyfriend that there are such things as continents and there wasn't just Europe. He couldn't understand why Australia (at the time) and America weren't in the Eurovision song contest. Also thought the continent of Africa was in fact one whole country. His mind was blown when I showed him a map....
Also had to get the history books out as he believed dinosaurs were made up and weren't real - had to explain evolution. He couldn't understand it.
#21
I had to explain to my coworker M 33 that the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. After I told them that they said "every day?".
Hugo 2 months ago
I once flew overnight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles. The great-circle route crosses the southern tip of Greenland, where the plane is flying faster than the Earth turns. I saw the sun rise and then set behind us, later to rise a second time. Can the flat-Earthers explain that?
#22
My friend and I did a survey for $10 each. When we were through the guy made us wait because he only had a twenty. We offered to just take the twenty and split it ourselves; he didn't like that. Then I offered to accept the twenty and give him ten dollars change so he could pay my friend, he stood and stared at me with the gears loudly clanking in his head for maybe 15 seconds, then he says " no, we're just going to wait for change".
Rick Murray 2 months ago
It's getting like that with checkout girls these days. Sometimes I just tell her to count what I have her and put it into the till...and she stares at the nice even whole amount to give me back like I've just invented magic or something. Jeez, *I* have dyscalculia and I can work this out, what the f**k is your excuse?!?
#23
I was checking out at Target at the u-scan and knew an item I was buying was 20% off. When I scanned it, it was going from 109.99 to 103.99 - not 20%! So I called an employee over and explained the situation and she was confused. She was telling me that I got the sale with the 103.99 price. When I said that 20% off 109.99 would be 87.99 she got an attitude and literally said “no it’s not ma’am, it’s only a couple cents!” She was speaking to me like I was trying to run one over on her. I was floored that she didn’t understand basic math - she had to be mid 20s. How do you calculate tips if you don’t know what 20% of something is or think it’s only a couple cents?!? I’m still shocked by this!
Ryan-James O'Driscoll 2 months ago
I've worked in retail alongside some wonderful people. There are many reasons why people might work in that industry, each unique to the individual. Unfortunately "too stupid to do anything else" is one reason.
#24
I was consulting for somebody who had a successful business, but was looking to for investments to expand. Was looking at his pitch deck and the conversation went something like this.
Me - "I'm not mathematician, but even at close glance, your numbers are wrong."
Him - "impossible."
Turns out, I was right. This muppet didn't know the difference between "gross" and "net." How the f**k he managed to stay out of the red still baffles me to this day. I think if he had been in a traditional industry, he would've been f****d honestly lol.
Had another guy in a meeting raise his hand as we were going through something I put together.
Him - "I'm a little confused. Who is this Roy fella."
Me - "Roy? There are no names in that document."
He didn't know what ROI was and thought it was a different spelling for Roy.
#25
I was chatting with an older woman. She mentioned a shark attack at Cape Cod and said "It's such a shame. I don't know why Mass doesn't do what Florida did." Confused I said "Oh, what did Florida do?" "Oh they built a shark proof fence all the way around the whole state."
I just kind of blinked at her.
#26
I had an in-law try to tell me how morally reprehensible people were in third-world counties who do the mining/tree-cutting/insert-environmentally-damaging-practice-here. And she wasn't talking about the companies or the leaders, but the basic workers. When I said people will do pretty much anything to be able to feed their families, she just responded that they should let their families starve to death instead of cutting down trees in the rainforest. And that's what she would do.
I was flabbergasted. .
#27
Guy at my first base got a girl pregnant and didn't understand how. We asked him if he knew how babies were made, and he legit 100% believed that you could have s*x all you wanted but wouldn't get pregnant unless you were married.
#28
Oh so much. I’ve met adults, like in their late 30s-40s, who don’t know what a tracking number is (for shipping packages). Who don’t know how to use libraries (I’ve seen this in more young adults lately). Who don’t know how to use email!
#29
F*****g REPLY ALL on emails where I've included you and another person on purpose. Don't just reply to me. Especially if I keep re-adding that second recipient with every reply! Especially if your job relies on email communication and you've likely grew up with the internet, no excuses!
I'm astonished how often I am have to explicitly ask people "please reply all to keep so and so in the conversation", in the year of your lord 2025.
#30
The last election. A young work colleague. "I dont know who to vote for. No-one's ever told me who to vote for.".
#31
My friend, a nice guy and everything, has always been struggling to make ends meet (also due to some questionable choices), and through the years I've had to explain him that the following ideas wouldn't have given him "the extra income I need":
* MLM (merch-less, but still a ponzi scheme)
* online trading
* crypto
* AI-generated content
* dropshipping
Basically ANY "get rich quick" scheme advertised online over the last 10-15 years
Like dude, come on, you're 50, not 15. You've been around long enough to know what is blatant fraudolent advertisement and what 'could' actually work.
#32
The amount of adults who don't understand the concept of compound interest never fails to astound me.
Joe Publique 2 months ago
The number of adults who don't understand the difference between countable and uncountable nouns never fails to astound me. I wish there were fewer rather than less.
#33
"I don't understand that s**t, I mean, where _does_ the sun go at night?!" when talking to someone about the relative size of planets... .
#34
I have a co-worker who has somehow managed to hang on to her job for the last 8 years. we work in a professional setting where most people have graduate degrees. she has a very well earned reputation for being an unreliable collaborator who just does her own thing no matter what.
last week we had a 'walk and talk' where she expressed absolute astonishment at the idea that decisions made in meetings serve to establish expectations about who will do what and what the timeline is.
Joe Publique 2 months ago
Just to align on synergies, we need a pre-meeting to socialise the concepts for the agenda-setting meeting. That will allow us to pressure-test the framework for the preliminary deep-dive, which will generate the key takeaways for the main project kick-off. So, to recap, the pre-pre-meeting outputs will feed into the pre-meeting, which gates the main meeting. Clear? Great. Let's take this offline and circle back on the circling-back process with some real blue-sky thinking.
#35
Trying to train people at my last job. I couldn't even get either of the guys under me to stack pallets properly. They'd constantly be throwing pallets into the pile upside down, sideways, or broken, then just keep throwing more on top until they had a teetering stack above their heads.
I also had a hell of a time trying to teach them about stacking cases in pretty basic patterns and interlocking. I ended up making templates in Excel to try to demonstrate. One of them would still build multiple pallets into each other all the time, although he did seem to grasp the concept of interlocking at the point. 🤦♂️.
#36
My first husband, when we were dating, he didn't know women have different exits for their monthly and their bladders. It was interesting to explain what I thought school anatomy covered but whatever lol.
Robert Beveridge 2 months ago
It didn't when I was in s*x Ed in America inthe late seventies, and I'm reasonably certain things have got worse, not better...
#37
My dad could not comprehend how people could just be poor, not have health insurance, or emergency savings, or a retirement account.
I tried explaining the boots theory and his response was to just buy the good boots from the start.
#38
If we book this recurring meeting from _your_ personal outlook calendar, then when someone else needs to take over this workstream, you will have to delete all the meetings, and the new lead will have to recreate them in their own personal calendar.
Because Outlook does not let us transfer ownership of meetings, plus you forwarded the invite to a bunch of people instead of just inviting them so updates and acceptances won't display properly. There's no way of ever handing these meetings over to someone else.
If we book the recurring event from the **shared team calendar** instead, which we all have access to, then we don't have to delete it and start all over every time the lead changes. And, as a bonus, if you're off sick then someone else can either reschedule or just join and lead the meeting (which we can't do otherwise, because you still won't un-hide your calendar from us so we can't see what's in it).
This person earns _at least_ twice what I do and has to be talked through sharing his screen in Teams at least once a week.
They have declared that all meetings must come from personal calendars. We cannot use the team calendar.
I am so tired.
Rick Murray 2 months ago
Stop helping. Once or twice, okay. More than that it's wilful ignorance.
What do you think ?
rym2xf5xbp 2 months ago
One day, my mother called me up because she needed me to come over and fix her cup holder. I asked her how it broke, thinking the only cup holder she had was in her car. She told me she sat down, put her coffee mug in the cup holder, and it snapped off. Could I come over and fix it for her? I had to explain that it wasn’t a cup holder. It was her CD ROM. I had fun fixing it for her and explaining what it was for… how to use it correctly. She was upset. She didn’t want a CD ROM there. She wanted a cup holder. I left, shaking my head.
rym2xf5xbp 2 months ago
One day, my mother called me up because she needed me to come over and fix her cup holder. I asked her how it broke, thinking the only cup holder she had was in her car. She told me she sat down, put her coffee mug in the cup holder, and it snapped off. Could I come over and fix it for her? I had to explain that it wasn’t a cup holder. It was her CD ROM. I had fun fixing it for her and explaining what it was for… how to use it correctly. She was upset. She didn’t want a CD ROM there. She wanted a cup holder. I left, shaking my head.
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