Am puzzled by the large number of questions in this section asking about the meanings of words. .?

Progress is not always a good thing.

My school age children want to use a computer and the Internet for everything but I always send them off to try and find the answers in a book first.

The Internet is seen as the easy option and why should someone spend time on research when there are those of us on here who will do it for two points?

For some of the questioners though, they have looked up the answer and do not understand it. They are asking for an easy to understand answer rather than the dry as dust dictionary definition.

I guess it's true to some extent, but if you're truly unhappy you can lie to yourself and force yourself to believe that everything's ok, and that almost always ends up in a crash and burn. It's better to try to work on the things that are causing you unhappiness, rather than pretending that they don't exist. I did that for about two years when I was much younger. I pretended that everything was alright, that if I ignored the things I didn't like they would just go away. Man did that blow up in my face. But after it did I realized how I was pretty much self-destructing and needed to make some changes. Depression is a tricky thing. It's easy to dis people who seem reluctant to break out of it, but if you've ever had to fight depression you'd know it's can be one of the most difficult things. So all in all, I'd say I disagree with that quote - but it's not completely without merit.

Good point.

A counterpoint. I could check the dictionary definitions for: "large" and "number", but that wouldn't give me much understanding on the context of your question. Of course, these are simple words... but dictionary fails to help in parsing the meaning.

Could it be that these people are too lazy to "google", or drive to a library?

Could be.

Or Perhaps some people are completely ignorant of the existence of such comprehensive resources?

Perhaps.

Perhaps people think Yahoo Answers provides some sort of special "wisdom of the crowd" not available in other resources?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps is it that people want a more personalized answer, and some examples they might not find in a dictionary?

Perhaps.

I guess I really don't know. People have their reasons and hidden agendas, and we can only guess at their intentions. Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that a "large number" of people ask silly questions, and a large number of people continue to answer?

Some people are silly that way.