"Gullible is not in the dictionary"

[Dark Nation]

Why is it that when someone hears this for the first time and they go look in the dictionary, they've "fallen for the joke"? "Gullible" means you believe anything you hear. So, "falling for the joke" should be if you respond with "oh, I didn't know that", then proceed to repeat this to everyone unchecked. Checking the dictionary means, "I don't believe your and I'm going to prove it."

At least, this is how I see it. *shrug*

[Xyvol]

Most of the time I hear it used to tell someone they are gullible, or were tricked. Usually after telling a story is when someone will say, "yeah, and did you know gullible is not in the dictionary?" I do like your viewpoint, I tend to fact check everything.

[Mercy]

My Econ' instructor once sent me on an errand to the front office to fetch him some rubber paper clips. He was a known joker and liked to mess with the girlies. As he was handing me a hall pass I admitted I knew it was a joke and I would return when I felt like it. For the rest of that semester I came and went from that class as I chose, always using the excuse of searching for those rubber paper clips. Sometimes I preferred to be in class and would choose someone else, ignorant of the joke, to go fetch the rubber paper clips in my place. Most of the time they didn't catch on even after being sent back to class by the amused office staff empty-handed. Somehow I managed perfect attendence and a 3.8 GPA in that class in spite of missing the better part of a semester.

I made sure to use a rubber paper clip when I handed in my final exam packet. It's amazing what one can find at the office supply stores.

-m.

[jerome]

Mercy- I have to admit, that's a good one.

At my previous job, we'd send new guys o go look for the lamp strecher. We'd tell them that it makes F71 lamps in to F73 lamps. When they couldn't find it, we'd tell them to go around outside and go down in to the warehouse basement. Usually by then, they'd get the idea that we were messing with them.

My first job at Domino's Pizza, it was a Dough repair kit.

With my current job, on a submarine, some of the ones I've heard were:
"Give some cookies to the Shaft Seals, they get hungry and the nukes won't feed them"
"Would you get me the serial numbers off the last two water slugs we shot." Water slugs being a torpedo tube, full of only water, having been shot.

[Xyvol]

Here at my restaurant some of the favorite pranks for new hires are telling them they need to drain the hot water machine, using a plunger to check for loose floor tiles, and putting a log on the fireplace. The fireplace is gas with ceramic logs, and the chimney is just decorative. What the pranksters didn't realize is that we actually have real wood, again for decorative pourposes. When someone actually found a log and put it on the fire it made quite a smokey mess. We had to put a stop to that one.

[SUCCESSOR]

Why is it that when someone hears this for the first time and they go look in the dictionary, they've "fallen for the joke"? "Gullible" means you believe anything you hear. So, "falling for the joke" should be if you respond with "oh, I didn't know that", then proceed to repeat this to everyone unchecked. Checking the dictionary means, "I don't believe your and I'm going to prove it."

At least, this is how I see it. *shrug*


I see what you mean. I still think that makes you gullible though. You thought they were sincere and didn't realize they were just trying to pull your leg. I think the only appropriate response to the whole "Did you know gullible is not in the dictionary?" thing is, "Do you know that my dick isn't going to suck itself?"

[ctrl-alt-delete]

I once convinced by ex-wife that I had been abducted by aliens. She got terrified thinking she was next and woke up her parents to protect her. She was about as gullible as could be.

[ShadowTiger]

... what? Don't be silly. :P The aliens wipe your memory of the incident so you can continue your existence under the illusion of free will and choice! ^_^

So the question is, concerning the original post, is this the one and only potential case of the exclusion of actual gullibility from an accusation of being gullible. If your intent, after having taken up the illusion of being tricked by a gullibility joke to go to the dictionary, is to disprove the illusory claim, then are you believing it and attempting to disprove it, or are you just attempting to disprove it?

Because anyone making an attempt at the illusory action can be said to be doing either, from the perspective of the external party, without being privy to the intentions of the victim.