etaoin writes: nothing wrong with honest ignorance.
This is easily said, but I can think of numerous occassions where I just didn't ask about something because I was afraid of people's reactions to my ignorance. When you later find out that no one else knew what the hell was going on, or that you couldn't possibly have known you feel better about yourself, but you could have saved a lot of trouble if you'd just asked in the first place. I have the feeling that honest and open ignorance is very disarming though.
"Pointing out someone else's ignorance" is of course very common, which reminds me that sometimes people will also feign ignorance to suit their purposes too.
Very interesting thread, btw.
