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An answer of Why do you ask? is a common symptom of asking the wrong questions or not giving enough information. Q: What's the best type of elephant to ride
by alextgordon 17y ago
An answer of Why do you ask? is a common symptom of asking the wrong questions or not giving enough information.
Q: What's the best type of elephant to ride to work? African or Indian?
A: Why do you ask?
Q: My car's broken down. I need an alternate mode of transport.
A: Maybe you should try riding the bus?
I get this a lot with technical questions. Someone wants to use the wrong tool for the job, pose their question with the assumption that it's the right tool, and then get defensive when I ask for more information.
- travisp 17y agoOn the other hand, I see too many technical people assuming the questioner must be asking the wrong question on IRC and mailing lists. This wastes time, and can be rather rude, when the questioner was perfectly correct to be asking the question the way that he was (and this is only determined after 3 minutes of arguing and insinuations about the questioners intelligence). This often turns into looking like the "even ruder" example with question two. If a short answer is possible, why not answer it and ask why if you suspect that they were really asking the wrong question?