Chatterbox #338 – Common sense

Hello guys and welcome back to another Qlips Chatterbox episode. Chatterbox is our series that features completely clear and natural conversations between two native speakers about a fascinating topic. Joining me today as my co host is Anna. Hey Anna, what's up? How are you doing today? Hi Andrew, hi everyone, I'm great, thanks, how are you?

I am also doing very well. Anna, I just woke up from a nap, so I should be refreshed and ready to go for this episode. And we have a fun topic today. We're going to talk about common sense. And in a way, this is continuing the series that we've been doing over the last several chatterbox episodes, where we've been talking about the five senses.

you know, sight and touch and hearing, etc. And then we had an episode about the sixth sense and intuition. And now we're talking about common sense. So we're talking still about sense. but in a different way, in a different sense, if I could make a bad pun there. So that's our topic for today, guys. We're talking about common sense and we'll get into it and get started in just a moment.

But before we do, let me remind you that there is an interactive transcript and a helpful study guide available for this episode for all QLIS members. You can sign up and become a Cute Loops member on our website. We can't do Cute Loops without the support of our members. So thank you so much.

to everyone out there who is supporting the work that we do here by becoming a QLOOPS member. And when you are a member, you'll get access to tons of other benefits and bonuses that we've designed to help you improve your English fluency faster. So Check out our website, learn all about it, and sign up and become a member today. And again, thanks so much to all the members out there. Okay, Anna, let's get into it. Let's get started with our chat here about common sense.

And we should start with a definition. So I think this might vary a little bit from person to person, but I'm curious about what your definition of common sense is. Wow. Well I was thinking about this actually and I looked at the definition online and I'm gonna read that and then I'm gonna add to it. So it says here that common sense is basically Sound practical judgment that's based on simple perception of the situation or facts.

It's the ability to make sensible decisions without needing detailed knowledge or analysis. Now, I would basically sum all of that up and just say, in a way, it's kind of like the obvious thing. If there's a task or something that you have to do There are some things that are just common sense. It's just so obvious that you should do it like that. And that's the common part, right? It's like everybody should really share the view that this is an obvious.

practical thing to do. So for me it's something Obvious. Like, for example, imagine you are at work and you're sending a really important email to the whole company. It's just common sense that you should double check that email before you send it out, right? So for me, it's just something that's kind of obvious. What about you, Andrew? How would you define it?

Yeah, I think that's a good definition, and I I pretty much agree with everything that you had to say there. If we were to break it down, that word common just means shared, right? So it's a kind of sense or knowledge or intuition that's shared by all people. So in that way we could just say that it's like basic knowledge, something that everybody should know. But I think the really funny thing is, is that

Often when we're talking about common sense, it's because we feel like someone lacks common sense, right? We're like complaining about. some action that somebody else did. And you're like, I can't believe they made that mistake or made that error. Like it's just common sense. Like don't send out an email filled with typos to the entire company without double checking it first, right? That's just common sense. But if it were truly common sense,

then that person would have done it, right? Because it means like it's basic knowledge that's shared between everybody, but that person didn't have the knowledge or didn't have the intuition. to avoid doing that mistake in the first place. So it's kind of funny. Like we assume that there's this basic sense, this basic knowledge shared by everyone. But I think everybody has their own individual opinion about what that knowledge is. And so that's when a lot of problems come up.

Anna, maybe I could ask you how you think we develop our sense of common sense. Our sense of common sense. Is it is it something that we learn in school or is taught to us by our parents or is it intuitive and natural? Who how do you think we develop this common sense? That is a really interesting question. And I guess it's probably a mix between all three of them. I would say It's probably more nurture than nature.

I.e., I guess I I know in previous episode we talked about kind of intuition and just knowing that some things are right and some things are wrong, but still that's based on your experience. And I think common sense is also like that as well. I think your parents, your siblings, they teach you that some things you shouldn't do or some things that you should do. And then maybe that's added to when you go to school and then that's reinforced.

So I think these are things that you kind of learn early on. Maybe a another example could be things about, I don't know if anyone listening to this is involved in health and safety. You know, things like not putting a box near a fire exit, for example, or not Doing your work on the edge of a building or something like this without any harness or something. Like those things are kind of just common sense, but you were probably taught them when you were training for the job.

or when you started in the company. So I think it's probably a mix of all three. I think it's something that you still develop though throughout your life. Because my goodness, by the way, what I'm not saying is that I always have comments. Sometimes we all do things where we think, did I really just do that? Like that was so stupid.

So I think we all lack common sense at times and I think it's something that yes, we learn when we're younger and we're growing up, but I think it's something that we're always learning new things, right? So I don't know, do you agree with that, Andrew? Would you add anything? You're you're absolutely right that it's probably a combination of just natural inherent survival skills, right? Like staying alive as a human. I think we all have these sort of built-in

behaviors, right? Like we we know we need to breathe and we just do this subconsciously. We know we need to eat and seek shelter, these kind of survival skills that are baked into us. And then for more advanced things, uh, I think yeah, some of it is just probably learned when we're children and observing how our parents And how adults behave around us. And then, yeah, things that we learn at school as well. So I don't think it's just

Totally natural. I think that probably a lot of our behavior is learned actually and just something that we develop as we grow up. I guess to sum up my thoughts on this, and I'm kind of just thinking through them here as I'm talking about it, I think that a lot of common sense isn't. built in, some of it is, but most of it probably is learned as we grow up through observation and from lessons that we get from our parents and teachers.

Anna, it's kind of funny. You just said that there were some times when you thought that you didn't have

common sense. And I wanted to dig into that a little bit more. Do you have like a funny story or an example that you could share with us of a time when you didn't feel like you exercised good common sense? Oh, loads of times. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna s share one that's not too embarrassing because there's loads that I could share on here that would definitely change your opinion of me probably.

I'm thinking of and I'm looking at this right now. So I have a piece of furniture in my living room. And like many of you listening to this, I'm sure you probably have been to IKEA or you've bought a piece of furniture and then you've taken it home and you've tried to Build it, right? So common sense is, you know, you get the piece of furniture, you take it home, you open the leaflet.

And you look, how do I build this piece of furniture? And then you follow the steps, one to nine, whatever it is, and then lo and behold, you have your piece of furniture. Well, I kind of got a little bit cocky, you know, and I was like, Oh, well, it's just gonna be like all the other ones, you know, I'll just whack it together, stick a couple of screws in.

Anyway, it ended up kind of being all back to front, you know. So it was like the top, the top of the thing was at the bottom, the sides looked all weird, and I had to take it all back down again. And then you kind of think afterwards, I was like, Well, number one, that was just kind of stupid actually. So we can put that in that category as well. And it's just like common sense. Just open the booklet, just have a look at the steps, and then you're just gonna save yourself.

all this time. So yeah, I don't know if I was in some kind of trance or something like this, but I did sort of reflect after that and think, you know, did I really just do that? So I think we could put that in the lacking common sense slash stupid But often I think that's what it feels like. You know, when you maybe have somebody like a colleague that does something and you're like,

You really didn't do that. Like you, you, you really put that big box in front of the fire exit. Like you just think how. How did that go through your mind? Like how did you think that that was a good idea? So I think kind of stupid and silly and these types of things are often reactions that we have when we lack common sense, but also other people. But now, Andrew, I want to hear one of yours, because I've shared one of mine. So when have you lacked common sense?

Well, actually this is something that my wife and I uh we we have a very good relationship. We don't argue very often, but this is something that my wife and I argue about from time to time because I think The idea of what is common sense and what isn't maybe is different from culture to culture to culture. And it was just, I think yesterday that my wife made some comment where she was like,

Andrew, I can't believe you're forty one years old, but you still don't know how to approach problem solving in this certain kind of way. And I can't even remember about what she made that comment about, but I thought that was funny and I was like I I d I don't know. It's like I I just go about doing things my own way and she goes about doing things her own way and whether one is right or wrong, I'm not

here to say it's like the outcome. To me, it's like the outcome that matters. If I try to do something and I take one approach that's maybe different than my wife's idea about how a problem should be solved or a task should be completed. I think as long as the task is completed successfully or the problem is solved successfully in the end, then it's probably okay. But yeah, I know definitely my wife and I have different opinions about what common sense is, but

I did the same thing that you did recently with uh some IKEA furniture. I was assembling a shelf for my wife's plants to put in our yard, and I got it all put together and I was just about to put the the bottom feet on the shelf so that I could stand it up. And then I realized that everything was backwards. And yeah, I should have looked at the instruction manual before doing it because I I put the pieces the reverse way that they should have been and

We say hindsight is 2020, right? So after you do something and you look back, then you're like, ah, of course, it's obvious I should have looked in the instruction manual at the very start. But I didn't do that and then I had to do this same thing, disassemble the furniture, just switch all the pieces around and put it back together. Which didn't take too much time, but it was

stupid and I didn't exercise good common sense there. Another thing that just happens, and I could probably talk for hours about all of the different times I haven't exercised good common sense, but What was it? Just last weekend I was doing some yard work and my wife has these new trees. I've talked about these new trees in a couple of QLUPs episodes here over the last few weeks. We have some new trees in our yard and

She is really putting a lot of effort into making sure that they grow up to be healthy big trees. And so she bought this. kind of sprayer, this pressurized sprayer, so that she can put some I don't know if it's like a fertilizer or a bug killer or something. I'm not sure. She's spraying something on the trees. She's the gardener in the home, so the the pressurized spray bottle came and it's like this big, I think it's five liters, this big five liter tub. And then you attach a hose to it.

and you have to pump it up and pressurize it and then there's a button on the hose and you can Pull the trigger, it's more like a trigger, pull the trigger and then the water comes out pressurized and you can add whatever fertilizer or or whatever you want to the tub and then spray your trees this way, right? So

She ordered this thing, it came and the instructions were all in English. So she said, Andrew, you set this sprayer up, figure out how to get it working, and then when it's good to go, let me know. So I was excited. I was like, cool, okay. I get to play around with this pressurized Sprayer. Yeah.

Not every day that you get to do this. So I got it all set up. I followed the instructions. I didn't put any chemicals or fertilizer or anything in it. It was just water. But I got it all pumped up and you have to pump

this thing like 30 times to put a bunch of pressure in it. And I was doing that and then I got it all loaded up and I was so excited to just test and see if it was working that I wasn't really aware of where my hose was pointed and then when I pulled the trigger I started spraying water all over the front door. So that was just not common sense, right? That was just like me being distracted and not thinking about what I was doing. So yeah, I guess sometimes

I get so into one task that I'm not thinking about what the results of my actions will be. And that's a very good example of that. That I wasn't thinking about where the end of the hose was pointed. I just got excited, pulled the trigger, and then I mean it was okay. It wasn't a big deal, but I did. give the front door a nice wash when I wasn't expecting to. Every cloud, right? Ever every cloud has a silver lining uh with that situation. Right.

I was just thinking of another example actually, which can be where people don't have common sense and You know, if you get an email in your inbox and it's so obviously a scam, maybe they send you an email and it says, Okay, I need money, uh, Queen Anna. Please can you send me some funds to wherever I am? Blah, blah, blah. And, you know, for me, it's like so obviously a scam, but I know that there are lots of people that click on that type of stuff. And I'm like,

Come on, that's a little bit of common sense. Now, I would say that there are people like, for example, um uh elderly people sometimes really struggle with that, like to understand if it if it's a scam or not. But I think for most people it's like, come on, guys. Like that was obviously a scam. Like they were obviously trying to rip you off. Um it's kind of like common sense. If there's an email that looks like it's from somebody you've never met before asking you for money.

that to me is like an obvious thing that you shouldn't click. So common sense, you know? Yeah. And there are so, so many examples of that. That is like a really great one. Here in Korea, the amount of spam that I get, I get almost daily, a text message or several text messages. And I've asked my friends, do you get these text messages too? And they say, yeah, like it's just really common that these are sent out. And it's kind of not to do with money. It's more like a sex scam. So it's like

Hi, I'm like a university student. I'm lonely. Do you want to meet me tonight? Click this link. And like obviously this is a scam, right? But it must be working. Like I'm sure there's a lot of maybe lonely dudes out there that click these links. And Yeah, I don't know. To me, that's just like common sense. Like why would you get a random message like that from somebody that you don't know? Obviously, obviously it's a scam.

But I mean, I guess the scammers are thinking like, okay, if we send out a million of these messages and two people click, then maybe we can get some money from it somehow, right? So I don't know, it's kind of sad that that kind of scamming does exist in our world, but yeah, that's a great example, Anna, that what might seem like common sense to us doesn't maybe seem like common sense for everybody, depending on the place that they're in in their life.

I was also as well just thinking there, Andrew, about other ways that we describe people who we feel lack some common sense. And for example, in British English we have this word which is ditzy. Ditzy is somebody who kind of is a little bit all over the place and they never seem to kind of do things in the right way.

It's not a very strong adjective, so it's not a huge criticism about their character, but it's just like those kind of people where I remember there was one girl that I knew, she wasn't a close friend. You know, she was going traveling and she went to the airport. She was catching a flight. And she nearly missed the flight because she was in the bathroom doing her makeup.

And I was like, girl, like just get to the gate. Like come on, you know? And she was terrible with that type of traveling stuff. Like she would always miss buses and planes and I don't know, you name it, she would miss it. It's just like Come on, just common sense. Like go to the airport, get through security and get to the gate.

And so I always used to call her sort of ditzy or a little bit all over the place. And sometimes people who you feel lack common sense, sometimes I sort of describe them a little bit like that. And I'm sure people have described me like that sometimes, but You know, it's those types of things. And I guess sometimes you could also put it in the category of somebody being a bit naive sometimes as well.

So there are other adjectives around that topic that we might use to describe somebody that we thought lacked common sense on a regular basis. Yeah, Ditzy's a great one, and we can use that in North American English as well, but I'm curious. Anna in in the UK sense of Ditzy, is it used mostly to refer to women?'Cause in in Canada if I called somebody Ditzy, I think I would only call a woman ditzy, not a man.

That's a really interesting question. And I think you're probably right. It is something that we would generally use if we were going to describe a female. And I think If I was gonna do it more generally, and I, you know, I'm not making any comment about that in terms of, you know, whether that's right or wrong or or whatever, um, but there was

You know, somebody being all over the place, that's something that I would just apply generically to everyone. Like somebody who's just all over the place. Like there's just no organization. There's just no like They're just all over the place. Like, God, how does this person sometimes this is something that we say, guys, we're like, how does this person survive? Like how do they how do they go through life? Uh like if they're not able to do

kind of basic, obvious things that require common sense. Like how do they how do they function? They're just all over the place. Yeah, all over the place or how can they survive? How can they function? Another great adjective is clueless. This person's clueless, right? Like they don't

have a clue, which just means that they don't know what to do. They have no idea what to do. We even have this word senseless, right? Senseless. Like this guy's senseless. He has no sense of of what to do. So Yeah, all of these adjectives we can use to describe people or talk about people who lack common sense.

And uh I'm wondering, do you think let's pick on the younger kids here for a minute, the younger generation. I I feel like every generation feels like the next generation that's coming up behind them has Yeah. less common sense than their generation. And we are probably like a generation apart or I don't know. What is your generation? Are you a m a millennial or Yeah, I'm I'm well I'm firmly placed in the millennial category. Yeah.

Okay. I'm an elder millennial, so I guess like we're ki kind of grouped in the same way and I I feel like people who are around your age, Anna, I I don't think there's any difference in our sense of common sense, but Sometimes when I see younger kids I'm like, man, they just haven't learned yet or they they don't have their fully developed common sense skills yet. Anna, what do you think when you look at younger folk these days? Do you feel like sometimes they don't have very good common sense?

Not really. I think it's more just to do a question of age. Like we obviously have an advantage over them because we've lived longer, literally. So we have more experience. And I think if I was looking at myself when I was younger, I probably didn't have that much common sense either. So I think there is just a factor of age, you know, when you're younger, you're just

starting out, you're learning how life works and you're more likely to lack some common sense. But then I think there are also some young people that really are very Switched on, they understand how things work. So I think it just depends. I think there's some people that have common sense and some people that don't, but I think there's plenty of people that are.

millennials, Generation X, whatever baby boomers that lack common sense. So I don't think it's necessarily to do with that. And I just think it's a question of when you're younger, you're just figuring things out. But I think there's plenty of people that are older that lack common sense too. So no, I don't agree with that. No. I think that's maybe one thing we haven't agreed on in a while, Andrew, maybe.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I I guess it would be we'd have to go topic by topic. And I agree that often younger people seem clueless and that's just because they don't have that life experience yet, right? And When I was their age too, then I would have been in the same situation and I would have been clueless at that point in my life. One thing that I was thinking about, which

always kind of makes me shake my head is when I have to like my parents' generation dealing with any tech issues with them. It just seems like so second nature to me, but they're completely clueless and they have no common sense about tech. And I've also noticed that some younger people are the same way. I think for our generation, we grew up with computers and grew up with technology, right, from a young age. So it was like,

really intuitive for us to learn. However The younger kids, like the the generations below us, Maybe they grew up with smartphones and everything was like it just worked really well. So they didn't need to figure out how the technology really operates behind the scenes. And so Some of their tech skills I've noticed are not as developed as our generation. So yeah, if that's one thing that I could pick on older folks and younger folks about is sometimes

the technology common sense doesn't seem to be there. For me, it just seems like basic, but For them, I think they don't have that. So that's one thing that I've noticed. But you know, we have this expression older and wiser. Just because you're older doesn't mean that you're always wiser and that you always have good conversation. I'm completely on the same page with you there. Yeah.

Absolutely not. I know plenty of people. I can think of a few people in my mind now that just like I don't know, again, coming back to what I said before, I don't know how they've got through life, quite honestly. But I'm thinking of a another example actually that I did. Okay. This is because as I said before, I'm absolutely not putting myself in the category of somebody that never lacks common sense. I definitely sometimes do that as well.

Just things like imagine you had to do a task like let's say on the computer, you you gave me some inspiration there, Andrew, with your with your example. I remember I had to do a task recently and I was thinking about the best way to do it. And I had like a a lot of information that I had to

analyze, I guess. And I kind of started thinking about it and I was like, oh well I could kind of do a document. And then I was like, I could kind of start all the rows there. And you know, and then I was like, Anna, what are you doing? Just just start an Excel. Like

What's wrong with you? Like just why are you wasting all your time creating a table? Like just open up Excel and just shove it in there. So, you know, it's like digs like that where you're like, duh, like a failure of common sense on on my part there.

But I think there are, and coming back to your point about technology, I think part of it is kind of common sense. And then another part is some people just haven't had actually training with tech things. And even though we kind of trained ourselves as we grew up, you know, it People just haven't had training. So what seems obvious to us is actually just a lack of experience using something.

And yeah, I totally agree. I I have some funny moments with my mum with tech and she's like, Oh, it's it the camera's not turning round and I'm like, Mum, just press the button at the bottom that says change the camera you know, like like, come on.

Well, I guess that goes back to what we were talking about to start this episode, which is about is common sense learned or natural? Because I think, yeah, when it comes to technology, what seemed like natural for us because we learned it as children for other people, it it is something that they have to go through this tech common sense.

And uh, I guess we're pretty much almost at the end of our conversation for today, but just before we wrap up, let's talk about one final topic, which is common sense versus book smart. And book smarts here means like what we study at school, right? When we go to school and we study history and economics and science, all of these topics. That's what we refer to as book smarts. However, common sense is

Yeah, what we've been talking about so far, all of the lessons and knowledge that we gain just through life and also our intuitive knowledge that we have since we were born. So what do you think is more important for getting through your day to day? probably gonna be common sense, but I think they are They are different because the way that I would split them up is an oversimplification. I would say common sense for me is more about practical things, day-to-day practical stuff in life.

Um book smarts, of course, is really important. If you're like an engineer, uh yeah, you need to know how to build a bridge, right? So that's like very important that you know the academic and technical parts of that. But then sometimes, and maybe you've had this happen where you've worked with someone or you know somebody who's like extremely intellectual and intelligent.

But then they do something and you're like, Really? Like I I mean it just seems so obvious that you shouldn't do it like that. It's like, but they seem to have no common sense. So it's kind of it's different. It's like Academic intelligence and being intellectual is not the same as having common sense. And sometimes very smart people can do things and you're like, I I really thought that was like a basic thing that everybody knew.

So I think it just depends on what you're talking about. Day to day life stuff, really important to have common sense, but of course we do want book smarts as well if we're doing important things. But yeah, so that's how I would split them up. Would you agree? Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. I totally agree. And there are those stereotypes, and I've actually known some in in my life as well, like a super genius level at doing something, like doing music, maybe.

or studying programming and being in like computer science and they can they can be really amazing at doing that one task and they've obviously studied a lot, plus they have natural talent and they can be so, so good in their field. But then they have like really poor personal hygiene or they don't even know how to make toast or something, right? And it's like, aren't these just like common things that we we know? Like

I I I I don't know. I guess not. So there are those people out there who are super, super smart, are like genius level in their field, but they lack that common sense of like survival skills, right? Like basic survival skills they don't seem to have. So I would agree with you that I think common sense is probably more important than book smarts just for our day to day. But as a society overall, we do obviously need book smarts, right? If we wanna have

engineers in the world who are building bridges, like you said, we're gonna need to have these books marts. So both are important, but if it's just merely a situation of survival, then common sense reigns in my opinion.

Well, Anna, I think this is a good place to wrap up our conversation for today. It was a fun one. I enjoyed hearing your stories about. Common sense fails. And guys, we would love to hear your opinion about common sense as well. Something that Anna and I didn't talk about, but I'm very, very curious about. how the definition of what common sense is varies from country to country to country.

And I would love to hear your opinion about what you think common sense is and what it means in your country. And we could have a kind of cultural comparison maybe with different QLUIPS listeners from around the world. So, guys, let's continue the conversation about this topic over on our Discord server. It's free for everyone to join. We have over 8,000 people.

who are practicing and improving their English each and every day over on our Discord server. So the link to join will be in the description for this episode. Just click the link. And yeah, let's continue the conversation over on the server. All right, so guys, it's time for us to take off. Please take care and we'll talk to you in the next episode. Until then, bye-bye. See you soon guys!