it seems this case wasn't willful ignorance because it should be the parents responsibility to teach him.

There's also the possibility that the person doesn't understand it enough to be able to explain it to someone else. Being able to do something and understand it are two different things.

Not so much the ability, but the incentive to do so. Goes right along with lane discipline. Today it was yet another moron in a Mercedes who came halfway accross into my lane before turning off without indicating.

While polite/ manners differ somewhat between cultures, rude and entitled is universally understood. Trying to be polite will get you everywhere, and specific customs might even be politely explained by the locals. In short- it is an attitude thing.

It's mostly people who don't read a lot of books - reading makes it so much easier to know how a text should be constructed

This used to bother me way too much but I've calmed down. If the wrong one is used, everyone knows what the person meant. Since the purpose of language is to share ideas, they completed the task. I now think it only matters when the different homonyms can lead to total confusion (The priest was last seen on the altar with his hands on a choir boy preying/praying on the young child).

isn't that a skill learnt in school?

This is apparently no longer taught at school level. Thus the understanding of clockwise and anticlockwise is also lost. The 24 hour clock should be universal.

Here in Australia it is taught and built upon but by bit from year 1 to 6. But think about it - it’s taught for a week of two in that year, but how often do kids get to consolidate those skills and given the chance to read clocks? Like any new skill, it needs reinforcement for it to be retained. How often do kids see analogue clocks or their parents encourage their child to use them?

Which is tragic. Same with cursive writing. They'll need to use a translate service to read the Declaration of Independence, which is frankly criminal.

really? my 7 year old Nephew knows how, they taught him in preschool

ok...this one, is a little different...analog clocks are a technology that on its way out. analog was useful in the time when clocks were mechanic...so that skill is relatively superfluos, like cursive

We were taught in school. My mother went over it with me at home. No one noticed how much trouble I had when the hands were between numbers, I was lost. It is logical and pretty simple since everything is turning clockwise. BUT it literally took me years, into adulthood, to figure it out. If someone asked me the time (I wore a watch) I'd freeze. Some how I didn't get it and no one taught me what I needed to get it.

My 17 year old daughter cannot, nor can she read or write cursive

Was a very tough task to learn while I was a kid.

I've tried for years and still struggle because of disabilities. It's really very annoying.

We actually noticed that our youngest couldn't at an age that their older sibling definitely could, and realised in between the birth of the first and the second the amount of stuff available online for younger kids, and the advent of tablets, meant they were so used to reading the time off the screen that they'd never had to grasp clock dials in a way their older sibling had just had to. So we made sure that they told us the time every single day on an analogue clock (we have several around) until they could. But it needed a focused intervention in a way it hadn't several years previously.

Analog wrist watches seem pretty popular these days.

Here is an exaggeration: I didn't learn Morse code in school. So what, I take my phone and call someone. Same goes with analog clocks. I'll by a digital one. Or I ask someone... no big deal.

I don't think we will have those much longer. There is also no reason I think

School I work in has just had to install a digital clock in the main hall as too many students couldn’t understand the analog one. (Found this out during exam time).

To be fair 10+4=2 is just odd.

"Able" is a skill that can be taught. "Willing" is an attitude that can't be fixed.

Why use ten different bags to begin with? Heavy stuff on the bottom, more fragile things on top. Done.

Knowing your idioms as well. It's "From the get go" not "from the gecko"; "A bull in a china shop", not "a bowl in a china shop", etc.

Table manners in general!

That's not a lack of basic skill/knowledge - that's being a lazy asshole

Learning to sew a button back on is a great skill to have - had to do that many a time when I wore a shirt and tie every day for work - fix it back in the hotel of an evening and then you won't lose the button on the way home.

The number of people with a complete lack of mechanical sympathy never ceases to amaze me. If you slam doors like that, or treat the accelerator in the car as an on/off switch, things will eventually break!

Following a series of fires cause by driers that collected lint where they shouldn't, there was a big recall of the affected models, with free replacements being provided, even for quite old machines. The replacements state very clearly that the lint trap must be emptied after each use.

I'm kind of the opposite. I grew up with computers, before even mobile phones were around. I can work a smartphone (and even develop Apps for it), but typing on a phone to me is like trying to knit a scarf with your eyes shut. Give me a proper keyboard and I'll give a professional typist a run of their money!

Sometimes, the written instructions are badly worded or the sketches in the instructions make no sense.

I met a guy who cooked everything with a drip coffee maker. Closed bag of frozen food, drip hot water over, repeat until "ready".

I was amazed, and also of course repulsed, when an ex of mine apparently didn't know how how to properly wipe his a5s after using the toilet. Skidmarks (and I mean, massive ones) were just a normal part of life for him. I tried to talk to him about it but he wasn't having it. Glad to be out of that one for many reasons.

Not quite the same, but I wish someone had discussed how interest on loans could really add up. Did not figure that out until my early 20's.

That panic of my coworkers running to me with bleeding fingers or Burns like whatdoido whatdoido?! Duh?!

That is down to the parents. My son's teachers have told us they can tell which children are read to every night and which aren't. The children who don't get read to at night for example read in the monotone and kids that are read to are much more expressive.

Well you sure as hell aren't going to get anywhere if you rely on Windows Troubleshooter!

Despite having both a smartphone with GPS and a dedicated GPS device, I still enjoy the comfort of keeping an old, massive Thomas Guide in the trunk of the car. ;-)

A lot of these "lacking basic skills" things are down to laziness too. I'm not a good cook by any means, but if I have to cook something and I'm not sure how to do it I look it up. The internet will tell me and I won't burn my house down.

A related peeve I have - is it really necessary for the characters on some drama series (like Westworld) to use f**k in every sentence? It's not as if I don't occasionally swear as well, but it ceases to be "edgy" and just starts getting tedious and boring after a while.

You mean a formal email? Like a letter? Because that's another skill that is sadly lacking.

First day of work the foreman told the new hire to sweep the floor. "But I have a Ph.D.!" - "Oh, sorry, I did not realize. I will show you how to do it..."

More specifically, close the damn thing after yourself.