The Quora Chronicles – Part 3
Some years ago, when my life as a “Dilbertesque” cubicle dweller still included a long daily commute to the office, on thing that made the morning drive bearable was listening to The Bob and Tom Show on the car radio. Their irreverant, some might even argue, tasteless, brand of humor, was the tonic that I and my fellow carpoolers needed before we could face another 8 hours of corporate correctness or what we often called “Company X Nice”. Company X isn’t the actually name of where I worked for 26 years, but it seems bad form to completely out the organization that is funding my retirement, so let’s just say, that although their mascot at the time was a bear dressed in red and white, perhaps Mr. Rogers would have been a better choice, given that (in their advertising anyway) they were all about being “neighborly.
One of my favorite Bob and Tom Show bits was a segment called Mr. Obvious, in which a clueless caller would seek advice from Mr. Obvious on questions that shouldn’t have been very hard to answer. For example, there was the guy who couldn’t understand how to work the new “TV” that his wife gave him, when it became obvious pretty quickly that it was actually a personal computer; or the guy who was convinced there was an animal living under his sink, which turned out to be the garbage disposal.
What I have also realized recently, however, is that a lot of the contributors to the discussion forum, Quora, are great candidates for a Mr. Obvious secgment in their own right. I should also qualify that all of these “questions” were posed no earlier than 2015, well beyond the point in history where Google, Siri, Alexa and even their predecessor, Ask Jeeves (remember him?) could provided answers much more expeditiously.
Why Do People Act So Weird When Drunk?
The writer wanted to know why a “normally relaxed person” could become so “chaotic and weird” when under the influence of alcohol. I couldn’t help but wonder whether this person slept through all of their high school health classes or skipped out during middle school when the D. A. R. E. officer came to speak. The question had gone unanswered for about 4 years so I took pity on the questioner and wrote a response about how alcohol (like many substances) travels through the bloodstream to the brain and alters the brain chemistry, causing unsual behavior.
How Do I Say “Dinero” in English?
For the last decade I’ve had a second career teaching English as a second language, so I do get a lot of very legitimate grammar questions on Quora. However, this one was posed in 2019 and I’m pretty sure Google Translate was already a thing.
There are also the people who don’t seem to understand the concept of a dictionary as in these “Mr. Obvious” questions:
In the song, All of Me John Legend sings, “You’re my muse.” What does it mean to be someone’s “muse.”
or;
What does it mean if somone is snide?
It’s hard to know wha to make of these types of questions, since it would take far more effort to type out a question on a forum like Quora and wait for an answer than it would be to simply say, “Hey, Alexa…”
Maybe I’ll add that as a Quora question of my own and let you know what I find out.
quietlyradical 