The Dumbest girl in the world
- Thread starter handyjack
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My lads showed me this.
I think it's a wind-up.
She knows enough about gravity to know that it could affect an object's weight.
I think it's a wind-up.
She knows enough about gravity to know that it could affect an object's weight.
What?
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Yeah, top comedienne of the future, or -
it would be good if she had a computer with Google on it, wouldn't it.
it would be good if she had a computer with Google on it, wouldn't it.
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This, silly!
Even my youngest (who has just turned 11) agrees she is brain-numbingly ill-informed!
I can't believe that so many people are so thick.
I'd like to think that they interviewed many more people and edited out the sensible responses.
Mind you, we have had the Labour government's 'dumbing down' programme for quite a few years, although that's no excuse for the Americans, of course.
I'd like to think that they interviewed many more people and edited out the sensible responses.
Mind you, we have had the Labour government's 'dumbing down' programme for quite a few years, although that's no excuse for the Americans, of course.
That is a real stupid driver, holding the camera and driving.
This one, in particular, says to me that many Americans lead a very insular life. For them, America IS the world and, although they might have heard about other countries, they are as remote from them as are other planets.
In Britain, I'm sure we've all heard about America and, largely due to the prevalence of American TV programmes and films, have a pretty clear idea of what America is like.
The Americans have probably seen very few British TV programmes and films (and I have to say that many of those seem to feature American actors anyway, probably in order to hope to sell the programmes to the US!), so they are quite likely to be oblivious to the reality of anything outside of their own country.
I'm sure I read something recently about a large proportion - the majority - of Americans not even possessing a passport.
When I worked with Americans in the past, they referred to this - # - as a 'pound' sign (rather than a 'hash'). I assume that someone at some time saw one of these strange symbols - £ - and confused it with one of these - # - which I find rather strange.
Somewhat true in many parts of middle America, less so around the coasts and metropolitan areas.
There are not an awful lot of British shows on TV in my neck of the woods, unless you have specific subscriptions (which cost a bloody fortune!), but it's surprising how many Brits there are in American TV shows (acting as Americans) that people in the UK probably wouldn't know. BBC America is about the only channel I get that is dedicated to British TV. Unfortunately, it's basically like Dave - Top Gear, Top Gear, Top Gear, Doctor Who, Doctor Who, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Trek, Star Trek..Top Gear, Top Ge.... You get the picture!
Correct.
I've queried this a few times since being here and have had various reasons as responses. The most popular reason is to do with the Baudot code, where teleprinters/telex machines had US keyboards with the '#' symbol in the position that the '£' symbol was in on British keyboards. Apparently, the US didn't really have much use for the '£' symbol and it was therefore not on their keyboards at all. (Bloody cheek!!) Later, the '#' key became known as the pound symbol here because of that similar positioning. (It's something along those lines anyway.) Another explanation is that it is a variation on the 'lb' term for pound with a horizontal line through the top which looked similar to '#'.
Maybe it will start to change now that Twitter uses the term 'hashtag', but they are a bit like us over here - 'We don't like change!'
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L
longdogs
They show a lot of programmes about the royal family. They absolutely love Prince Harry over there.
The vastness of America means that for many people other countries really are very remote. For example, where I'm sitting at home at the moment, it's about 700 miles north to the Canadian border, and about the same distance south to reach Mexico. Westward I have about 140 miles of California to cross (and pretty wild, sparsely inhabited country at that) then it's the Pacific Ocean. Eastward I have almost the full width of the United States stretching in front of me - It's over 2000 miles across about seven other states to Ohio where "misterhelpful" is located, then it's still hundreds more miles to the Atlantic from there.
And to be fair, I'm afraid over the years I've run into a good few fellow Brits who have a rather distorted view of what America is like. Sometimes TV doesn't really convey the full picture.
I seem to have the figure of around 80% in my mind from somewhere. But to be fair again, although the rules have tightened in recent years for a very long time it was possible for U.S. citizens to visit Canada and Mexico without a passport, just as British & Irish citizens can move between the U.K. and the Irish Republic without one.
The pound sign was in use as commercial shorthand for "lb." long before teleprinters came along. You can find old bills and invoices from the 19th century which contain entries such as "10# sugar" or "50# 10d. nails." It developed in a similar way to @ for "at" and & for "and." No doubt it was the existing use of # which caused it to be included in the character set of (American) typewriters from early days, and hence to teleprinters and later computer equipment.
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