HTML is a sexually transmitted disease, say many Americans

[janusz]

Other jaw-droppers include:

- Gigabyte being identified as “an insect commonly found in South America” by 27 per cent of respondents
- 42 per cent saying motherboards are "the deck of a cruise ship"
- MP3 is thought to be a cousin of R2D2, after 23 per cent thought the audio file format is a "Star Wars" robot
- USB was thought to be shorthand for a European country by 12 per cent of respondents

Blu-Ray was held to be a marine animal by 18 per cent of respondents, while software was defined as comfortable clothes by 15 per cent.

The Register

[n5bb]

This tell us much more about the gullibility of The Register and the LA Times than about what Americans really believe:
Dumb Survey Results Followed by Even Dumber Reporting
Media Ethics reports on questionable "poll"
The "poll" was supposedly sent to some people via email by a PR company known for Internet pranks.

By the way, anytime you find some poll publicized by a group in one country claiming that people in another country are stupid, I suggest you ignore those claims.

Bill

[janusz]

Let's listen to the other side too... Here is an extract from the online version of the LA article:

Updated 9:40 a.m. PST, March 5: The origin and veracity of the survey have come under question by a journalism ethics website. The firm that conducted the survey, 10 Yetis Public Relations, said it stands by its work and has provided the full survey results.

The survey is "100% genuine, and it's a valid survey," said Leanne Thomas, a senior account executive for 10 Yetis Public Relations.

Thomas said the survey was conducted over email over the course of seven days. She said participants of the survey were given no incentive to respond

BTW, this was a poll publicized by a group in one country claiming that people in the same country are stupid. This, in itself, does not make more (or less) newsworthy

[n5bb]

The poll was conducted by a UK public relations firm for Vouchercloud (a UK coupon service) about Americans. It was not conducted by a normal scientific polling organization. PR firms just want to get their clients in the news, and they obviously did this for Vouchercloud in this example. Here is an example from the 10 Yetis Public Relations website:
Naked Sledding World Championship

On the 10 Yetis public relations firm website, here is how they describe themselves:
10 Yetis Insight Blog - A PR Stunt Agency

I'm not impressed.