Is there a competition for the most absurd question today?
The last three posts I read:
Why is Spanish backwards?
Why do you say "cana" and not "grey hair"?
Who created the Spanish words?
Honestly, I don't think I can come up with something more absurd even if I try. Is it April Fools' day or something like that today?
30 Answers
Have you ever heard the saying, "There's no such thing as a stupid question"? It's wrong.
I've been pondering this post and the comments.
When these sorts of questions would come up in the classroom, almost invariably it would be a student who is a very literal thinker.
Language study can be challenging for literal thinkers. They want to translate word for word, and it makes no sense that "gray hair" would not be an exact translation.
I started teaching so long ago that my early students are now middle aged adults. I have noticed that some of those literal thinkers who struggled with non literal translations are great scientists and mathmeticians. In fact, one of them is literally a rocket scientist who has made significant contributions to the space program.
In all of our interactions with other people it's important to try to remember that most people are doing the best they can at any given time.
Maybe some of these questions are purposefully silly, I don't know. But it's possible that some of them are legitimate, and that the student asking the question has been discouraged from participating in class and has turned to an internet forum.
Why is Spanish backwards?
Maybe some people should stop looking at themselves in the mirror while reading
Lazarus, this is why you are a forum favorite.....You say "out loud" what the rest of us are thinking. 
Well,coming off 36 years of teaching students ages 12 and up, this seems like a normal run of questions to me!
Pues, desde la punta de vista de haber dado clases a estudiantes de la edad de 12 años y mayor, esta serie de preguntas no me cae extraña!
How do you say, "dumber than a rock" in Spanish?
Más tonto que...
- pellizcar cristales.
- mandado a hacer de encargo.
- Abundio, que vendió el coche para comprar la gasolina.
- cagar pa' dentro.
- ponerle mierda a un ventilador.
No eres más tonto porque....
- no entrenas
- has llegado al límite de tus posibilidades.
- el intelecto no te da para más.
Laz - I think you read my mind. Maybe there's a full moon tonight. Some of these questions (and "answers") almost made me wet myself. The best laugh I've had all day. By the way ......
Why does "Spanish" have 7 letters?
Why do people from Spain speak Spanish?
How many words are there in Spanish? What are they?
You should see some of the late night questions. They can be really absurd.
Rumor has it that this is a new weekly badge category.
How do you say, "dumber than a rock" in Spanish?
I meant this comment as a joke, but since I am trying to learn Spanish, I might as well try to translate my sarcasm, too.
Como se dice, "mas tonto que una roca?" en español?
These questions are coming from students who appear to be dumber than rocks.
Estas preguntas vienen de estudiantes que parecen ser más tontos que las piedras.
In all honesty, although I was a good student, I must admit that I spent my adolescence with my head in the clouds. Not unlike these students, in high school, my natural inclination was the intellectual path of least resistance. I distinctly remember the road to critical thinking came at least partially through adults looking me squarely in the eyes and screaming, "Think!"
Why are you so rude?, are you more intelligent than the others? I don't think so. Como podrian medir sus conocimientos con los de otros?, me parece muy soberbios todos estos comentarios, parecen britanicos, perdon pero suena asi!
Yeah, there have been some very odd queries but asked by a small group of human beans .
When I was teaching English in Spain I did notice, as a few people have mentioned, that people have different learning "comfort zones". Some are grammar oriented and want to analyse and know every nuance of the structural format, others are more free-wheeling and take the intuitive, "take a chance" route.
A great class was always when I had a mix of both and could use them "for" as opposed to "against" each other, it made learning fun and nobody could be smugly right.
Ideally, the chemistry meant, especially with small groups, that each person had an opposite style learner to learn from. It made everyone pay just that bit more attention and it was always such fun!
Nothing more amusing than a nerd and a bohemian who clearly share the same idea arguing over the semantics, as in, who "owns" the idea. 
Oh, why are words called words? What's hen for egg?
I don't know about the stupid questions, for myself I have always been someone who says: "There's no such thing as a stupid question", although I realise that there is a pesky minority who will ask stupid questions just to provoke....!
However, I also like to give the benefit of the doubt, to see people as innocent until proved otherwise.
I think we should either implement the requirement to have a certain amount of points prior to being allowed to ask questions in the forum, or try to be patient and ask the 'offenders' to try to think of a better way to ask their question.
Maybe some of these questions are purposefully silly, I don't know. But it's possible that some of them are legitimate, and that the student asking the question has been discouraged from participating in class and has turned to an internet forum.
I think that generally speaking, the Forum is pretty good about answering literal-minded questions. I think most of the veterans are able to discern when somebody really wants to know - most of the time, anyway.
If we look at all the threads that Lazarus mentioned, all of them have at least one or two straight answers.
In my opinion, however, even literal-minded people must learn a modicum of uncommon sense (ain't no such thing as "common sense" in my experience). I have serious doubts about the value of pampering sheer stupidity too much. And, if you'll all forgive my harshness, I think that a question like "Who created the Spanish words" is plain stupid. I expect a question like "what's the history of Spanish" or "how did Spanish originate" as a legitimate question coming from a functional mind.
But of course, now I'm getting into the old argument about "how much PC is too much PC, and so forth.
I mean, seriously - what is happening that so many humans no longer seem to be able to reason for themselves???
It seems like a good solution would be to change the rules to the forum. Perhaps something like you need X number of reputation points before you can start a thread.
That would weed out A LOT of the threads that pop that are totally asinine.
Also, if someone that didn't have enough reputation points tried to start a thread, it could give an error message like
"Sorry, you do not have enough reputation points to start a thread. If you just want to translate a word, please click on the link below, and the auto-translator would be happy to translate for you."
Just a thought....
