Ever been talking with someone who is so sure of themselves, there's no way they could be wrong? These conversations can be interesting, especially if they're completely in the wrong. Just ask these people.
People on Reddit share the funniest "fact" someone tried to tell them. Content has been edited for clarity.
Don’t Argue With An Expert
“Goats lay eggs. A several minute argument followed, and I did not convince him he was wrong. I work in meat processing. Not that’s necessary to know that goats don’t lay eggs, but it just made the argument all the more ridiculous. I’d literally seen goats born live countless times, and yet he argued.”
Oh Sally
“My mom walking with a group of friends on a popular trail in the UK. She has quite an outspoken friend, let’s call her ‘Sally.’ The group saw a number of Chinese tourists taking pictures of the sheep along the trail.
One of the group asked, ‘I wonder why they are all taking pictures of sheep all the time.’
To which Sally replies, ‘It’s because they don’t have sheep in China.’
The group all believed Sally, and thought it was an amazing fact. My mum decided to regurgitate the fact one dinner time, saying that ‘Sally had told her so.’
I called lies, so I googled it there and then.
Turns out China has the largest population of sheep in the entire world.
My mum has never lived that down.”
Is There A Math Teacher Available?
“I once got into a disagreement with some random dude at an A&W, because he thought that 1/4 (one quarter) was more than 1/3 (one third). His reasoning was that since 1/4 has a four and 1/3 has a three, and 4 is one unit higher than 3 then 1/4 is more than 1/3.
The worst part was that in order to prove him wrong, I asked the cashier girl which weighed more, she didn’t know. Then I asked the next person in line, that idiot said 1/4. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to have a complete idiot think that he’s smarter than you because everyone in the room is just as dumb as he is?”
That’s Not How That Works
“An old boss explained to me one day that hearing men sing causes women’s brains to release some kind of hormone, and it makes us crazy. This is why girls and women screamed and fainted over The Beatles back in the day, and why we get all hysterical at concerts.
He said it in this really condescending tone, too, like he was dropping some deep knowledge on me that I probably wouldn’t understand. But that’s how he explained most things anyway. Freaking hated that idiot.”
Not The Major For Her
“I once got into it with an ichthyology major (fish science) over whether goldfish were a type of carp during a group project (about carp). Notably, our professor (natural sciences) was heavily active in carp management campaigns in our state. After fifteen minutes, I called him over and explained that we were debating if goldfish were a type of carp. He looked… puzzled, at best.
He looks between us, and then says, ‘Hey, you should know she’s an ichthyology major. Why would you need to ask me to confirm goldfish are carp?’
She kind of sputtered, then went a bit red as she went back to what she was doing. He then picked up that she was the one who didn’t know, and he may or may not have encouraged her to find a new major after probing and finding that she basically had no idea how fish worked two years into the program.”
That Date Is Not Happening
“Went to New York on a band trip in high school. A boy tried to impress me with the ‘fact’ that the Statue of Liberty is made of gold, and they painted it green so people wouldn’t steal it. He was also adamant that all the mummies in the Met are elaborate fakes and the real ones are stored in bunkers five stories below ground to ‘protect people from ancient diseases.’
He then thought I would be so impressed by his knowledge I would date him. Not a chance.”
The Best Dad Joke
“When I was four, my father told me about his time living in Ohio, and how desert it was. As a small child, I associated hyenas and cacti with the desert, and asked him if they had those in Ohio. He proceeded to tell me about how many there were, and I was so wide eyes and fascinated.
He passed when I was seven, and I never really connected the dots that he was mess with me until I was 15. The dude pulled the longest dad joke I’ve ever heard and wasn’t even here for the end of it.”
A For Effort?
“When I was a freshman in high school, we had to do a science fair project for our midterm. There were a handful of girls in the class who were extremely anti-fragrance. Like if someone used strong smelling shampoo, these girls would freak out and insist on opening the windows.
One of these girls did her science fair project on ‘ingredient X.’ According to her, every single perfume and body spray uses the same exact ‘ingredient X,’ the manufacturers do not even know what it is, and it is insanely harmful/causes cancer.
This girl sprayed bugs with Axe and Pink body spray to show the damaging effects of ‘ingredient X’ on living creatures; her project was that she sprayed bugs with Axe and they died from ‘ingredient X.’
Oh, and this presentation was in front of a panel of state judges.”
Thorough Research
“My senior year English teacher said that, ‘Hens only lay fertile eggs when they hear a rooster.’
Luckily we were in the computer room, so I naturally look up the wiki for chickens. I put the whole section of reproduction onto a Word document. Printed it out (should mention that it was crunch time and everyone was printing their finales, but this was important to me). I walk over to the teacher station, while she’s on Facebook to show kids her granddaughter’s presents and other nonsense and I nicely ask for a highlighter. I highlight the line about cloacal kissing, and plop it on the desk.
We had a good laugh, couldn’t tell if she was impressed or taken aback.
Luckily it was her last year teaching. Which showed.”
Please Wear Gloves
“My former fast-food coworkers tried telling me that using gloves while prepping/making food spreads more germs than using your bare, washed hands.
I said, ‘if that’s true, why does every medical professional use gloves? Why do surgeons use gloves?’
Nobody had an answer. These former coworkers were the same disgusting pigs that refused to wash the trays your food is put on.
‘It looks clean, I just put a paper liner on it, it’ll be fine!’
We worked across the street from a hospital. I quit from the stress of trying not to kill someone.”
They Had Facts To Back It Up
“When I was young, my dad told me straws give you brain damage. He really just didn’t want to use straws, but decided that was too boring. We concocted a whole pseudo-scientific explanation for why straws cause brain damage that’s obviously a complete lie, but sounded legit. I’ve told people this for years, and have gotten good enough that a lot of them believe it.
Occasionally, someone will tell me something along the lines of, ‘Hey man, I was talking to someone about that straw brain damage thing, and they say you’re lying.’
So I guess I might be the source for some people’s inaccurate facts.”
If Only It Worked Like That
“An ex of mine insisted that if you ‘visualized’ anything, it would happen. She insisted she just had to visualize receiving lots of money and it would happen. When I pushed to get more info, she doubled down and said that, if I believed, I could stick my hand in boiling water and not get scalded. To her all of this was fact, and if you failed it only meant that you didn’t truly believe in what you had visualized.
That was an interesting relationship for sure. She also didn’t believe in evolution and was deeply insulted when I implied that humans evolved from primates.”
Good Luck To Him
“Middle school, arguing with this eccentric kid. I think we were telling each other momma jokes, and I must have said something stupid like ‘your momma infinite.’
He says ‘your momma candidate.’
Confused, I asked him what the heck he was talking about. So he says it’s a bigger number than infinite, because his dad told him so. Is that a fact?
Anyway, same weird guy that used to live near me had all these old issues of Popular Science, electrical manuals, things like that. I thought he just collected the stuff and it was pretty cool to page through a lot of these retro electric mags.
So I get to some article about some concept supersonic plane and he says ‘One day they’re going to lose the diagrams to this, but I’ve got this copy, and they’re going to thank me.’
One time he held a knife to my neck for making fun of him so I stopped going over. Last I heard he got scammed by the Spain bombings, sending all his money to someone who told him they were going to wire millions to him from his dead descendants
I wish him heaps and candidates of luck wherever he is.”
But They’re Actually Not
“There’s this guy who was in my class last year who was a nightmare of a human. One day he started yet another argument. He asked me if I liked regular cars or electric cars. I said electric cars, because they’re better for the environment.
He said, ‘Actually the gases and fumes that are used to make electric cars are worse than the fumes produced by regular cars.’
Not true.
I said as a joke, maybe they should just bring back horses. Cue stupid fact. He says, and this is 100% true, ‘Horse farts are actually worse for the environment than cars.’
Yes, I asked if he was joking. He was not.”
Makes Sense How He Knew
“A friend of mine and myself were talking about online Minecraft. He said that he heard about one player named ‘myMCname’ that had ten and a half stacks of diamonds. I corrected him saying he had ten and forty.
He then said, ‘How the heck do you know? We don’t even play on the same server.’
I simply lead him to my room, launched Minecraft, and behold, my username : -myMCname-. I laughed for a good minute.
Another one was when the dumb kid in my class told me about diseases turning people into zombies. I then showed him an article from a very well known and respected medical/pharmacy/however it’s called lab, explaining how hard it’d be for something to control our brains. No wonder he failed all biology classes.”
What Happened To Him?
“Went to a Christian science lecture once. This guy wanted to explain how we could see the light of stars millions of light years away, but the earth is only six thousand years old.
This guy claimed that the universe was made up of these little bubbles. We call them atoms on earth, but in deep space they can grow to gigantic proportions. Light transmits across them instantaneously. So the light that was supposed to get here in millions of years only took thousands.
This guy even claimed to have concrete, scientific proof. He was going to public very soon and revolutionize science. I was drinking deeply from every flavor of Kool-Aid the church had to offer, but even I was thinking that you’re not supposed to silence by starting with the conclusion that you want and working backwards.
This was fifteen years ago, and I’ve never heard of that guy or his theory since, not even in the wackiest religious circles–although I admittedly don’t frequent them much anymore. I don’t like kool-aid.”
There’s No Way He Could Be A Twin
“My grandfather was at a birthday for one of his friends all of them in their seventies. The guy whose birthday it was told them he would call his sister soon to wish her happy birthday. One of the other guys was in disbelief that him and his sister both shared the same birthday. It was explained to him that they were twins.
The guy laughed a bit, and said that he wasn’t gullible enough to fall for that.
He even said, ‘You and your sister can’t be twins.’
He then went on to explain to the others that all twins are identical, and it’s impossible that their friend had a twin sister.”
Two Very Different Thins
“There was this one girl that I went to high school with who just couldn’t ever admit that she was wrong, even when she knew that she was. One time, we were all talking about ice cream and I started telling a story about Neapolitan ice cream. In the middle of my story, she just started laughing and giggling and I asked what was wrong.
She said ‘Neapolitan? Hahaha, I think you’ll find its pronounced ‘Napoleon’ ACTUALLY!’
She got really sassy and self-righteous for absolutely no reason, and started going around our friendship group making everybody take her side.
Finally, I just said ‘Okay, sorry I didn’t know that I was pronouncing it wrong this whole time, sorry, I was wrong,’ and I just moved on.
Then she said, ‘God, Why do you always have to have the last word! Other people are allowed an opinion you know. You’re not the only person who is ever right!’
Then I didn’t really hear from her again after that… There are so many people like this in my life, it’s kind of irritating. My sister one spent an entire day trying to tell me that it’s not ‘Tupperware,’ but in actual fact it’s called ‘tubberware.’
She’s similar to the girl from high school in the fact that about five minutes in, she realized that she was in fact wrong, I could tell she noticed, but she continued defending herself regardless. How interesting.”
At Least They Know
“It wasn’t someone else… it was me that stated it.
I was talking about climbers on Mount Everest and I casually stated, ‘Oh yeah, it gets really hot on the mountain actually, the snow reflects the sun and it increases temps to like 80 degrees for the climbers.’
No no no, I was incorrectly thinking of heat when I meant sunburns were a serious threat… not temperature.
I have a really weird habit of saying incorrect fun facts… I’m aware of it though and I’m being more cautious like “don’t quote me on this because I might be blatantly wrong.’
It’s Her Name, She Would Know
“My name is Linzi, I know it’s an unusual spelling, L-I-N-Z-I, but that’s just the way its spelled. One day when I was in primary school, I had to give my name to someone. When I gave them my name, they told me my name was spelled wrong. Here is how the convo went:
Teacher – ‘what’s your name?’
Me – ‘Linzi.’
Teacher – ‘L-I-N-D-S-A-Y.’
Me – ‘That’s not how my name is spelled.’
Teacher – ‘How is spelled then?’
Me – ‘L-I-N-Z-I’
Teacher – ‘That’s wrong.’
Me (visibly annoyed and offended) – ‘Yes, it is.’
Teacher – ‘No, it’s not. Don’t talk back to me.’
Me – ‘But that is how my name is spelled.’
Teacher – ‘No, it isn’t.’
Me – ‘Is it your name or my name?’
Teacher – ‘Yours.’
Me – ‘Then I know how to spell it, not you. I know how my name is spelled, and it’s spelled L-I-N-Z-I.’
Teacher (visibly angry and annoyed) – ‘No it isn’t!’
She then calls out to my class teacher, hoping that she will back her up. We’ll call her ‘CT.’
CT – ‘What’s the problem?’
Teacher – ‘This girl is giving me the incorrect spelling of her name.’
CT – ‘How did she spell it?’
Teacher – ‘L-I-N-Z-I.’
CT – ‘That’s not wrong, it’s how her name is spelled.’
Teacher – ‘No it isn’t!’
CT and me – Yes it is.’
The teacher was still angry, but gave in due to embarrassment and she wrote my name off and I got to continue. It just makes me made when people say something in a know-it-all tone but they are wrong. I mean seriously, it’s my name, I know the spelling, you don’t.”
Where The Heck Did She Learn That?
“In the 6th grade, a friend told me coitus involved the guy’s foot. My understanding was a guy would put his foot in my southern region.
I believed that for an embarrassing amount of time, as my mom sent me to a religious private school shortly after. Coitus education or anything of the sort was not discussed.
Imagine my surprise when I found out in 8th grade what PMS stood for…and when I learned in high school that boys would touch their member to pee. I was 19 when I learned a guy could move his member without touching it (I was in total shock).”
Not A Good Volunteer
“I was recently teaching a class while a middle-aged volunteer (not a teacher) was observing. I said something about a gecko on the window and something about lizards in general. The volunteer interrupted class to correct me that geckos aren’t lizards.
I was speechless for a moment, but remembered that we have to be super nice to volunteers, so I said, ‘Oh. Well, I’m not a biologist. What are they if not lizards?’
She said, ‘I can’t remember right now, but they’re not lizards.’
If only she hadn’t been a volunteer… After she was gone, I assured the students that, yes, geckos are indeed lizards and that they should remember to take what volunteers say with a grain of salt, as apparently any idiot can volunteer.”
That Doesn’t Seem Right
“This was in like 2017. My brother was planning some like rural Mexico trip, and he kept going on and on and on about how Mexico was paradise. He even said he was going to move there, because they have it way better there and that literally all of the problems facing America have been solved. In Mexico.
And I was just like ‘cool.’
And then he asked if I wanted to come with, and I said I didn’t want to travel down there right now. Really, it was because I only get a few weeks of PTO a year and wanted to go somewhere with my SO.
Then my brother says ‘Why not? It’s completely safe. No one gets killed down there.’
And I just remember thinking There is no freaking way that’s true.
So I just looked it up right there, and that’s when I found out that the year before Mexico had more murders than any other country. And then I showed my brother that and he still defended his position. Mexico is a wonderful place and beautiful place, but it’s not utopia.”
Definitely A Scam
“A tour guide once told me that the water spins counter clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere when you pull the plug. He told me he’d seen it himself when someone performed an experiment at the equator. I explained to him that this is a myth, and that the experiment is a scam. I think that till this day he still doesn’t believe me.”
She Was Suddenly Busy
“I told a coworker that I can type 80 words a minute. She began to argue with me that the fastest typist on record is 35 words a minute. I laughed at her, because I thought she was joking. Thirty-five is slow.
I said to her, ‘Want to time me?’
And suddenly, she didn’t have time. But she basically made me appear stupid in front of everyone for zero reason.
And yes, I can type 80 words a minute.”
She Knew She Was Wrong, But Didn’t Care
“One of the most annoying coworkers I ever had was this girl who thought she knew everything. Like my god, she was so annoying and she’d ramble on forever, recounting obviously fake stories if you let her. If she didn’t genuinely know something (which was often) she’d just make something up. We were talking about how much city bus drivers make for pay, and then got onto the topic of private delivery companies (FedEx, UPS, etc).
She tried telling me, ‘Oh, that’s because those companies work for the state.’
I told her that they didn’t and they were private companies. You could tell she knew she was caught in being wrong, but I could literally feel the gears in her empty little head turning as she just lied further.
She told me, ‘Oh yeah, but they do the post office’s job, that’s why you pay postage when you use them.’
She then tried telling me a private school bus company (that I happened to know for a hard fact was private) was also operated by the state, and that’s why their bus drivers made so much money.
I eventually realized what kind of person she was (this was only one of our first conversations) and quickly placated her with an ‘Ah, oh really,’ and left it at that.”
Where To Start With This One
“A coworker at a holiday job I did told me, fully convinced, that smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer. IT actually helps reduce the risk for lung cancer.
As for why and how: ‘Just look at the statistics for European countries, smoking is less common there and they have the same lung cancer rate.’
He then went on to explain that ever since the 50s, when the US started with Atomic Bomb tests, there are radioactive cancer causing particles everywhere in the air that cause cancer straightaway if it touches you. Smoking ’cause the lungs to build up a mucus membrane’ that catches the particles inside the lung and filters it out.”
Oh Mr. Reynolds
“My 8th grade junior high school science teacher, who was also the football coach, told us that if something were to be frozen to absolute zero it would cease to exist. Apparently he thought that matter only exists because of the movement of atoms and molecules. So if they’re frozen to the point of no movement, they would theoretically just-poof! Disappear.
I thought it sounded dumb when he said, it but it was coming from my science teacher so my little 8th grade mind kind of accepted it. Later when I talked to my older brother about it, he informed me that my teacher was indeed a idiot. He told that freezing something to absolute zero wouldn’t make it disappear ,and that the only effects would be that the object would simply be really freaking cold.
Thanks, Mr. Reynolds.”