Children's questions you can't answer

[hairyhippy]

"How many birds would I need so that they could lift me up and make me fly?"

[clarion]

A: One - but it has to be a special and big one.  Be sure to look out for it!

[Frenchie]

I'm sure you could google for the lifting capacity of certain birds... 

[juliet]

"I don't know - let's see if we can look it up" 

(This was largely my parents' approach to That Sort Of Question - it was reasonably common that at some point over dinner me or my sister would be sent to get the big encyclopaedia down   The internets must make this a lot easier!)

[Wowbagger]

I'm sure you could google for the lifting capacity of certain birds... 

Don't be silly - a five-ounce bird couldn't lift a two pound coconut!

[tiermat]

A seemingly easy one, but you try answering it....

"Why do elephants have tusks?"

[nuttycyclist]

"What are you doing?"..."why?"

[Frenchie]

I'm sure you could google for the lifting capacity of certain birds... 

Don't be silly - a five-ounce bird couldn't lift a two pound coconut!

He asked how many birds?

Can you use SI units; lead by example Wow!

[Luke]

"How many birds would I need so that they could lift me up and make me fly?"

3218.

Maybe.

[Rapples]

I'm sure you could google for the lifting capacity of certain birds... 

Don't be silly - a five-ounce bird couldn't lift a two pound coconut!

Would that be an African or European Swallow?

[agagisgroovy]

"Dad, is an allotrope anything to do with an isotope?" 

[rogerzilla]

"Dad, is an allotrope anything to do with an isotype?" 

Miss Z the elder used to come up with unanswerable questions such as "Why is the sky?"

Mrs Z's best ever, when reading the Christmas turkey instructions ("defrost for 24 hours in a refrigerator"), was "How were people supposed to defrost their turkeys before they had 'fridges?"

[geraldc]

Well an eagle can apparently lift half it's own body weight, so that's about 3kg, so divide the weight of the child by 3.

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/ExpertAnswer05.html

Then to freak out the child, show them this video of an Eagle lifting up a small deer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ibdPMGC1Y

[clarion]

"Dad, is an allotrope anything to do with an isotope?" 

Well, that can be answered quite easily...

[agagisgroovy]

"Dad, is an allotrope anything to do with an isotope?" 

Well, that can be answered quite easily...

Mind you, he didn't know whilst propelling the triplet with Siblings 1 and 2 down a country lane in Suffolk... 

[PaulF]

I had what's air made of? Followed by what's Nitrogen made of?

Now I could have talked about quarks and leptons but "ask Mummy she knows" is easier

[Zoidburg]

"Why does that lady have a moustache?"

[gordon taylor]

"Sir, what kind of pickled onions do they have in the big jars at fish'n'chip shops?"

Asked outright by a heavily pregnant 16-year-old in the middle of my obviously stunning (and vitally important) afternoon maths lesson on adding fractions.

She's a gem.

[alan]

"Sir, what kind of pickled onions do they have in the big jars at fish'n'chip shops?"

Asked outright by a heavily pregnant 16-year-old in the middle of my obviously stunning (and vitally important) afternoon maths lesson on adding fractions.

She's a gem.

P'raps she should be told that they are a form of oral contraception 
Bit too late now but could be usefull as future reference

[Wowbagger]

"Sir, what kind of pickled onions do they have in the big jars at fish'n'chip shops?"

Asked outright by a heavily pregnant 16-year-old in the middle of my obviously stunning (and vitally important) afternoon maths lesson on adding fractions.

She's a gem.

At least they weren't pickled eggs (see Essex Pub ride). If they were then perhaps she wouldn't have been pregnant.

[PaulF]

We had "what's a question?" the other day 

[scott]

We had "what's a question?" the other day 

<snort>     Some sort of logical black hole there....

[hairyhippy]

A statement used to find information.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Little Cudzo asks a lot of "If x, then what?" questions, such as "If you fell down that big hole, then what?" To which the obvious answer is "You'd have to pull me out."

[Basil]

My kids used to come up with some gems. 
"Why do we wake up?"
"How do people remember how to talk?"