Miscellaneous desk
< February 9	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 11 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 10

Super-forgetfulness

I realized that on some occassions I forget whether I had simply forgot how to do a particular thing or had never learned it. In other words, it's not merely forgetfulness, but forgetting whether something was indeed forgotten. Is this a known thing in psychology and does it have some name? Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 21:05, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If someone knows how to do a particular thing and their name is not Jason Bourne, it will usually not occur to them that they may have forgotten how they learned it (although this is in fact quite common). So we need to consider only the possibility that they don't know how to do that particular thing. If they then don't know if they once learned how to do it, there is obviously no way (without a further examination such as rummaging through a drawer with diplomas or calling their mom) for them to tell whether they once learned it but forgot, or simply never learned it in the first place. This means that the question boils down to, "Is there a name for the situation that someone does not know if they ever learned how to do some particular thing?" Now I forgot the name for such super-forgetfulness, or did I never learn one? I don't know how to knit with a purl stitch. I know for a fact that I once knew how to knit, because I remember that I knitted some things, to give as a present, a very long time ago. I don't remember if that involved any purling. Did I learn it but forgot, or never learned the purl stitch? I don't know. It seems rather normal to me, actually, not a super thing. --Lambiam 12:15, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Banh mi

What is the proper way of eating a Vietnamese banh mi? Is it eaten with a knife and a fork, or picked up in the hands and eaten like a baguette? JIP | Talk 23:08, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see lots of youtube videos of the latter, none of the former. It is a sandwich after all. Now you could use utensils, but who wants to imitate Donald Trump (and pizza)? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:16, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Street food is never eaten with knife and fork in any culture, and bánh mì is considered street food in Vietnam. But also, the use of knife and fork is particular to Western table manners. No dish in Asian cuisine is eaten with knife and fork except by Westerners or thorougly Westernized individuals. --Lambiam 12:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've never eaten one any way except with my hands. It's basically a submarine sandwich... Furthermore, Vietnamese cuisine is not usually eaten with a knife and fork, at least in any of the restaurants I've been in in the U.S. Other than the banh mi, which is eaten like any other sandwich, the only utensils I've seen used is a spoon and chopsticks. --Jayron 32 23:46, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]