Your dad has my sympathy. How old are you?

It was long long ago. My school held a ceremony for pupils whose parents participated in the war. The pupils got some money along with some other valuable things. One of my classmates were among the pupils. Her father died in the war and she had never known who he was, but she had always wanted to have a father like everyone else. She stepped on the platform got a large amount of money and some other desirable things. While everyone was applauding, I overheard someone in my class saying: “I wish I was her so that I could get all those things!” Totally dumb and insensitive.

The war? I assume you’re talking about the conflict between the U S and what was then North Vietnam. Tell me Mimi, do you regard that episode in the formation of your country as a civil war? Your use of the term “the war” struck me as very interesting, because it can mean so many different wars depending on the individual.

@stanleybmanly well we basically use “the war” for the Vietnam – US war. The French invasion is just too far away, and it and the US war are the most well-known. Say “the war” and most people here can understand.

By far it has to be this cop who had pulled over my friend who was driving and asked us all to get out of the car. This cop was barely 5 feet tall, walks over to me…looks up and asks me….“How come you are so tall and your friends are so small??” I mean…SERIOUSLY??!?? O_o

“I am not a crook” R. Nixon

“Maybe if we called the Intelligent Designer ‘Louis Vuitton’ to avoid frightening the Godphobics, they’d finally admit the truth: Modern science has disproved Darwinian evolution.” Ann Coulter

I have a running Twitter commentary on Shit My Mother In Law Says. Yes, I know it’s been done, that is where I got the idea. It prevents me from saying things directly to HER that would cause her to keep talking.

One of the top ten this week:

“You know who Steve Jobs is? He invented computers. Before him the internet was illegal to the people. The government was keeping internet from everyone until Steve Jobs invented computer.”

Edit: Made the response closer to what she actually said and not the Twitter edit version.

A woman in my neighborhood is running for city mayor. She was recently injured badly – a broken femur and hip. She’s barely ambulatory, can’t take care of herself, and is staying with friends until she recuperates.

At a recent political event, this woman had to get up and address a large group of people. With the help of some rather elaborate crutches, she managed to hobble to the microphone. Someone in the audience, one of her detractors, loudly said, “She’s just doing that to get sympathy.”

It was a low blow, a cheap shot, and a hit below the belt. I don’t support this woman and will vote for her opponent, but that comment sickened and disgusted me. I mean, really? How can someone be so cruel and inappropriate?

My ex husband, years ago that had grabbed me by the throat during an argument.
He later said, and I quote. ” I didn’t try to strangle you, I only choked you!” lol

An aging librarian said to me years ago when I was an intern, “The patron is looking for pictures of Neanderthal man. Why they didn’t even have cameras back then!”

The same librarian once asked me who this Woody Allen person is.

I once saw, on another message board, someone claim that in high school his class read Beowulf in its original language.

“Mission accomplished” – George Bush

Hank Johnson D-Georgia 4th

Chamberlain said that if only he could have talked to Hitler than Germany would not have gone to war.

@Darth_Algar My high school English teacher recited passages of Beowulf in its original language, so…. not that hard to believe. and I also possess a copy of the text, but I lack the knowledge to read or study it properly, but maybe one day.

This is one of those questions where my answer has a 50/50 shot of changing after I read the news.

Dumbest thing i ever said: “I love you” she made me regret it :P

@cazzie

A group of high schoolers reading a 3000 line text in Old English – a language that was pretty much dead by the 1200s and only survives now among linguists who spend years studying it? Yeah, I find that extremely hard to believe.

Um, we read part of it in Old English in my high school Humanities class. Not the whole thing, obviously, but portions. It was kind of an object lesson in the development of the language over time.

The funny bit about the statement to me wasn’t that the class read it in Old English, but that they claimed that was the “original language”. Seeing as the story was passed on through oral tradition from the Danes likely over hundreds of years, Old English is clearly not the original language.

Sure, I could buy something like that. Portions, as you say, to demonstrate the development of language. (Though in that case are you really reading it, or are you merely reciting what you’ve been instructed to recite? But perhaps that’s splitting hairs, I dunno.) But this dude basically claimed that his class had read the entire work, and that they had learned Old English just to read it.

Honestly, I think his class probably read some early translation into modern English, though perhaps a somewhat antiquated style, and the teacher probably gave them some instruction to better comprehend that antiquated styling. I think he probably mistook this for Old English (the way some people seem to think that Shakespeare is Old English), and rather than admitting his honest error doubled down and insisted that his class learned Old English just to read Beowulf. It got ridiculous with him, at one point, accusing anyone who pushed for more contextual information of trolling before he eventually abandoned the thread.

@Darth_Algar I can believe that the kid probably read a portion, thinking it was the whole thing. It probably felt like the whole thing. Speaking of nostalgic perception:

My brother used to make his daughter stand in the corner for twenty minutes to a half an hour when she was 3 years old. When our mother told him how harsh that seemed to her, my brother said, ‘Mom, it’s what you used to do to us when we were kids.’ and my mom answered, ‘No, Michael, it was no more than 5 minutes, but it must have seemed like a half hour to you.’ My oldest brother is not known for his skills as a father.

Here is a goodie. At my shop (as I’ve mentioned on another thread)... there is a co-owner who thinks she knows everything and won’t listen to a word anyone else says. They couldn’t get the printer to work. It workes via WiFi. She insisted that everyone turn off their cell phones including their 4G because, ‘It’s all waves that go through the air and they get in the way of each other’.

I called the internet provider and found that our service was limited to a certain number of WiFi connections and tried to explain this to her, but she wouldn’t have it. She kept insisting that all things that are wireless, regardless if they were 4G or blue tooth, were interfering with each other because of the waves hitting each other in the air. If there were customers in the shop she was sure that their wireless devices were interfering as well. Out network is password protected. Any wireless devices coming into our store could see the network, but not log on. But there is no convincing stupid.

Had a boss one time who, when talking about one of our competitors, said that they were “hands and feet” above the rest.

@josie If we had more time to edit our answers I was desperately searching for that very clip! omg epic dumb! wow!

I was working in an accountants office in a provincial New Zealand town. A young clerk was overhearing a conversation between two other staff members talking about a client and his wife. Suddenly the junior interupts and says loudly, ” Jewish? There aren’t any Jews left. Didn’t Hitler kill them all?” We were all a bit mortified.

I’ve heard/seen many dumb things, some of which make me irrationally angry because these people reproduce.

On Facebook last week: “Don’t forget to roll your clocks forward one hour this Sunday!”

“Kim Kardashian is a genius and would be a fantastic First Lady!”

“9/11 was a hoax.”

“These parents are biblically wrong for letting their little boy wear a Princess Elsa costume for Halloween. He’s going to grow up gay and need therapy because of them.”

Some Skittles-obsessed fanatical loser: “No chocolate is worth any amount of work”!

“The Holocaust never happened.”

Not only is the comment offensive, but it’s downright idiotic. The Holocaust is among the most well-documented incidents in history.

“Conan is 8 years old today and currently battling Lymphoma. Can this wonderful dog get 10,000 likes to encourage him today?”

Posted on FB today.