proverbs - Responding to a poor question


There's a proverb in my native language (Norwegian) which is used as a reply to a person who complains about a poor answer given to his/her poor question. It says that the quality of the answer is relative to the quality of the question.




  • You asked me a poor question, so I'll respond with a poor answer.


Roughly translated:



  • As asked, so answered



Is there a similar proverb in the English language?



Answer



The literal, direct translation is the English idiom: "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer".


Or, as we say in computer science: garbage in, garbage out.


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