Every so often, find myself over at the other office to collect files for our department and each time I come away wondering what it is they teach them at school nowadays.
Overheard the other day...........
1 - "That Paris Hilton makes great perfume!"
2 - "How do you spell 'Richard'? Is there a 't' in it?"
3 - "What does 'intricate' mean?"
There are more, but I'd need to talk to other witnesses and make a list of them. The latest one I heard was "What's this 'credit card crunch' thing about then?" Utter genius!
Mind you, give me a genuine simpleton over some pseudo-intellectual bore any day of the week.
12 comments:
Background info: In my hometown, there's a mall called 'Universe'. It was relatively new at the time of the following conversation that actually took place between two young girls:
Girl A: This was (a film perhaps?) about Universe. You know what Universe is, right?
Girl B: Yup, I've been there before.
Once again, it's me.
When I was (working during a summer) in the USA I met a fellow worker, she was from the UK. She kept asking me, a Hungarian about spelling English words like 'especially', and...some other I can't recall.
I'll admit that my own spelling can be a little erratic at times, but there is a basic level of literacy sadly missing in many people. It's always interesting to hear about words or terminology that some people have no concept of, despite not having a language/cultural barrier to prevent them from fully understanding them.
I've just been reading through some job applications and well, this makes me sound like an old git, but truly the standard was appalling. When one of the job criteria is having 'excellent written communication and report writing skills' you'd think that people would make the effort in a job application to use correct grammar and spelling, but no... I could ask is this the standard of education these days, but education doesn't teach you not to care or not to even think about these things does it?!
Fair point Cocktails. I suppose there have always been, and always will be people who can barely spell their own names. What I failed to mention is that all but one of the girls in the group seemed to be nice enough people, just a bit dull. There was one though, who just made me want to snap my biro and hurl folders out the window. As I said, I don't mind genuine naivety or ignorance, I'm not too far off it myself sometimes to be honest. It's the ones who are proud of their stupidity that make me wish for a hard rain to fall.
I like dafties up to a point but the can be very frustrating. My own personal top daft statement was from a girl who was awestruck at my ability to tell the difference between the conservatives and the tories.
The Dumb Britain Column is always good value in Private Eye;
Anne Robinson: Who wrote Old Possum's book of Practical Cats?
Contestant: Er...Old Possum?
Niec try though.
Clairwil - As long as they don't get too close, they're alright. There used to be a guy in our place whose kickname was 'Solid'. Thing is, he wasn't thick, just didn't know things that the rest of us took as common knowledge. He also had a habit of picking up stuff he'd half heard and running with it.
Birdwatcher - It's been a while since I read PE, but Dumb Britain is always worth a look (along with some of the strips (do they still have 'Roy of The Fuggers'?). As one who is prone to catching the odd installment of Weakest Link, I can honestly say that every day there are at least a dozen ridiculous answers that make the example you provided sound like an educated guess........ =D
Has Solid left? Aw I liked the idea of him where did he go?
You still up for porty next weekend?
Solid's away to another solicitors, probably on a good deal more than me...........
I am up for Portobello next week. Never one to knock back a day out on the coast..........
Marvellous. I'm aiming to set out at about 9am but I'll get back to you.
9AM?!!!!
It's actually a good idea to go as early as possible, you don't realise how much time gets swallowed up by travelling and waiting on stuff. Getting to and from North Berwick for instance accounts for between four and five hours of the day.
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