Dan Orlovsky Saying He Just Discovered One of the Most Basic Concepts in Math is an All Time Admission

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Back in the day, when Howard Stern was in his prime, he did a recurring bit that was funny in a way that unfunny, irrelevant Howard Stern of the 2020s would be appalled by. He'd have a beautiful woman like a Playboy Playmate or adult film star on and have them play "The Stripper Knowledge Game," where he'd give them a quiz to test their grasp of the most basic common knowledge. Questions like "Where is Big Ben located?" "What is the President's house called?" "Who discovered electricity?" and so on. 

The premise being that, if you happen to be extremely sexually desirable, you can get by without knowing even the most rudimentary facts. One that was confirmed pretty much every time Stern got someone to play it. 

What has always astonished me is when I've met people who didn't have the gift of great looks, and still didn't know the most basic things. I've had coworkers, both when I was working in a kitchen and in a courthouse, who were below average in every aspect of life, who never made any attempt to compensate by learning things. Some of whom seemed to aggressively avoid knowing anything. Like how to find the US on a map. I had one who couldn't tell you what we celebrate on the 4th of July, other than … well, July 4th. When I said the holiday goes by another name, and gave a hint that there's a movie named after it starring Will Smith, the guess I got was, "Um … Bad Boys?" On my mother's soul, that's a true story. I worked with an adult who believed there was a non-zero chance all those fireworks and patriotic songs could be for Bad Boys Day. 

All of which I mention because sometimes people can be extremely successful by any objective standard, and still not understand the most fundamental things. Dan Orlovsky being the latest example:

"Hand to God, true story. Do you guys know what percent, like the word percent, is derived from?" Orlovsky asked a perplexed crew. "How come it's percent?"

"So Paul [Hembekides] this morning was like, 'Joe Burrow, his sack rate is four percent.' And I said, 'Dumb this down for me. No human's going to hear me say that and I'm going to make them smart.' And he goes, 'Well, what do you mean?' I said, 'What does that actually mean?' He goes, 'Out of every 100 dropbacks, he's getting sacked four times. And I said, 'Is that really what it is? It's always out of 100?'"

Look, I like Orlovsky. I watch his football videos fairly regularly. And I've used his analysis plenty of times on here, when they support some point I was trying to make. (If they disprove my premise, I ignore them. That's how I operate.) So by no means do I think he's a dumb person. 

And yet, this. If I recall, we started learning percentages in 4th grade at Ralph Talbot Elementary. But if anything, that felt a little late. Any of my friends who were Red Sox fans understood what it meant when they were playing .500 ball or Fred Lynn was batting .300. And that's using decimals! 

How does anyone reach adulthood and not get that the "cent" in "percent" means 100? Did Dan go through his entire NFL career not getting what it means when he was completing 50% of his passes that it meant 50 out of 100? What did he think the 50 was referring to? And how did he never ask? Did he ever see a pair of jeans at Old Navy marked "Buy One, Get One 50% Off" and not know what that final price was going to come to? What about all the times when he heard someone say "I'm 99.99% certain" and not pick up on the fact they were trying to express they were almost positive. 

Holy schniekies, what did he think "100%" means? Like when he's charging his phone? Did it never occur to him as it keeps going up 1% at a time, that it's one out of 100? 

You don't need to be Pope Leo to understand the Latin root "cent." How one cent is 1/100th of a dollar. A century is 100 years. A centimeter is 1/100th of a meter.  Or that per just means per. And together they're how we measure ratios in a uniform way. 

Still, I don't hold this against the man. If anything, I respect his willingness to admit it on basic cable for the world to hear. It takes an impressive amount of self-confidence to admit your ignorance over something a concept so basic. And more to the point, it goes a long way toward explaining this:

Not knowing what "percent" means remains only the second dumbest thing Orlovsky's ever done.