Am I a jerk for thinking that I'm smarter than my dad? Yesterday my dad asked me how to spell "holiday". He uses the word "chinamen" constantly. He also didn't know Noah's Ark was a biblical story.

You are not a jerk. But you are not smarter than your dad either. Everyone has their own ability,lifestyle, outlook & knowledge, & everyone gain knowledge in different ways, everyone in this world is part of a puzzle that complete each other. Everyone has different knowledge & abilities, there's one or two main knowledge that people focus to earn & gain experience in it, & there's social knowledge which is about different topics. So we are not smarter than each other in general but only maybe we can count that in particular subjects which yet in my opinion it wouldn't be suit.

For example in so many diseases that  you might get, you visit the doctor so you're telling that doctor is smarter than you ? No, he just chosen his path & studied about a particular part in medical field, that's all.

So there gonna be tons of things that your dad knows about & different abilities he's got that you can't even imagine. The same with you in compare of him, none of you are smarter than each other. Everyone one of us just choose different varied fields to gain our knowledge on it.

The world is so bigger than you can imagine, the smartest person that would claim they know everything, one day they'll face wow there's a lot of things they don't know yet & how much they are behind.

Not necessarily, although for those 2 instances yes, but maybe not for everything else

What's wrong with "chinamen"?

It may not be politically correct ... But are they not "men" from "China"?

You are jerk for associating spelling and grammar skills with intelligence and trying to 'belittle' your dad.  YOU may have had the benefit a full academic life of school and training .. He may not have had the same priviledge.  THAT does not mean he is a stupid man ... Uneducated, maybe .. But not unintelligent.

You would be considered a jerk if you made your father feel less than, if you "corrected" him in front of others, or if he rubbed his nose in his "lack of intelligence".

You've given us a couple of examples that it could be perceived that he was "wrong" or "incorrect".

When I was growing up, my mother gloated over her superiority when she won at Scrabble. None of my siblings would play that game with me for years, because of how Mom treated us when she won. When I play the game now, I play to have fun and it took me years to get my sister to play it with me because of how my mom was. You can't learn anything if someone keeps calling you stupid (that's what Mom did with us).

I'm giving you this example because gloating or feeling superior when you feel you're smarter than your parent should not be your goal. If you want to educate someone, to teach someone something, then do so out of love not out of a desire to humiliate someone. Hope this helps answer your question.

Do the taxes this year