In Which Kinsler Ventures Into the Strange World of Yahoo Answers.

I'm not completely sorry to say that I have reached Level 2 on Yahoo! Answers, one of the strangest bits of information exchange I've come across in my weary years. Because Yahoo Answers, and I refuse to use that damn exclamation point in their dumb name any further, is a fascinating bit of sociology.

The first question really got me. It has the casual grammar and punctuation customary to this part of the world; you get used to it soon enough.

Was supersonic airliner Concorde just a hoax? If we haven't got a supersonic airliner now and one isn't on the drawing board, how come it was supposedly developed in the 1960's. How come we can't do it now?

Now, this is interesting, because a supersonic airliner would, to the average kid, be an advance over the slow kind. I had to explain about sonic booms (who in this day and age has heard one?) and the ozone concerns that killed government funding for Boeing's proposed 'Supersonic transport' in the of the 1960's. That, and the fact that the Concorde never made money.

But to someone who lived through that era, it was an astonishing question for several reasons. Kids have learned that their government lies, and keeps secrets from them. We grew up with Walt Disney's enthusiasm for space. They grew up with Area 51, aliens hidden by evil Government conspiracies, and Men in Black.

So I have been answering questions. Science and engineering, but most of those are for homework assignments, and I only respond to the funny ones that were clearly misread by the kids, like why Pluto is a dwarf planet, which I compared to asking why a mountain was a particular height.

There are other puzzlers:

i have never been abroad before and im looking for the perfect family holiday. my daughter will be 2 so id like somewhere that has activities for her and maybe a creche so we could go and do our own thing for a couple of hours.i want to go somewhere thats hot (Im going in september) but not too far as my daughter will get bored on the plane.and somewhere not too remote from shops etc but not thats going to be right in the center of 18-30 holidays!!!please help.thanks x x x

This is where I began to become aware of the size of the English-speaking population on Planet Earth, and its general absent-mindedness as well. I could only respond that it would have been nice if the writer had told us where she lived.

It's almost addictive. There was the kid who wrote in to ask if he had been accepted for admission at a university in Nigeria. There are kids--and adults--who write in to ask if they're showing signs of mental illness. There was this one:

Is there anything wrong with me by living with my parents at 29yo?
I get along with my parents so well and I dont need a lousy, noisy, scum roomate. My parents house is paid off and I go to school. Besides I can spend my money in better things than in a rip off rent to some morgage company that employees their ceo and than I will end up paying them for their big mansions.

I replied that if he didn't think there was something wrong, he probably wouldn't have asked. Usually I try to be more helpful than that, but there hardly seemed to be any other answer.

Yahoo Answers is something of a service to the community and something of a game. You get two points for each question you answer, and ten points if someone--presumably whoever asked--declares your answer to be the best of any of them. My Best Answer Ratio is 12%, which might be great. There's some sort of reward system for getting lots of points, but I've forgotten what great privileges it gives the avid Answerer. For my part, I've found it to be a good exercise in making up fast answers, and it's taught me something else, which is that if I decide to try, I could probably be a fairly good advice columnist. Here's one that I liked.

Why can't I get Him to go completely away?
I keep telling Him that I don't want to go out and kill the abortion doctors and that I don't want to try and force His religion into society but He keeps nagging me. I don't want His rules where I become so psychologically damaged because I think everything is a sin. But He still stays with me. What should I do?

Here's what I wrote. Very carefully, and I sure hope it helped:

If you are sincere, and a young adult, you may be experiencing the onset of one or another form of schizophrenia or other psychotic illness. This has nothing to do with religion: God doesn't contact His believers this way.

When someone speaks to us, our ears pick up the sounds, and then they contact the brain with the information. In some people, nobody knows why, the brain makes up its own information and makes it seem like it came in through the ears. These are the voices one hears, and they'll tell you to do almost anything: good, evil or otherwise.

Go to your local public health service and tell the receptionist what you think is happening to you. It's possible that things will clear up by themselves, but generally treatment is needed. Right now, it would seem to you that your cause is right and just, but the voices know that you'll be destroyed as surely as those they're asking you to kill.

Please be careful.

This wasn't considered the best answer. Those that voted on it--my God, there must be people with even less to do than I--liked another one better. 'Stay on your meds,' it advised.