Post a silly example of taking something literally

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OMG, I said the same thing when i was told that!

Same here, I don't take then literally much anymore, but i still visualize them literally. When I was reading s book on genetics and the childless author wrote that his selfish genes could go jump in a lake I had a picture in my mind of As, Gs, Cs, and Ts jumping into a lake!

I remember seeing signs on the road saying "Don't drink and drive" and I thought that was the stupidest thing ever. I thought drinks as in drinking water or pop or juice, etc. I wondered why can't you drink and then drive.


I also remember seeing these sings in restaurants showing a picture of a baby in the mother's tummy and the glass in mother's hand and it have a red circle around it and a line through it. I thought "why can't you hold a class with a baby inside?"


In 7th grade, a girl told me she liked drinking and getting stoned. I thought she drank liquids and liked rocks. She also said she partied and I thought she meant she like going to parties. Mom told me she meant she drinks alcohol, likes doing drugs that are illegal and no prescribed to her and she goes to parties that have drugs and alcohol.


As a child every time people asked me what's up, I always looked up. I did that up till the age of 14 and then it got explained to me what it meant. Then I started noticing that phrase in movies and TV shows.

In 4th grade I first learned about drugs and how bad they are, I came home that day and told my parents I couldn't take my pills anymore because drugs are bad.

There was a time when I thought oral sex meant talking dirty. I was reading a trashy magazine (I was in 9th grade) and it related that this celebrity had had oral sex with a woman. So I thought that meant they stood there and said "dirty" words to each other.

My Mom: "You can be anything you want when you grow up."
Me (five-years-old): "I want to be a purple ballerina octopus!! !"
My Mom: "I MEANT IN YOUR OWN SPECIES!"

My aunt and her friend and I are in the car going someplace (when I'm really little) and my aunt's friend asked, "What religion is Shannon?" to which my aunt replied, "Oh, she's nothing," and then I perked up from the backseat and said, "I'm an American, aren't I?!"

I know there's a lot from when I was older and from around this time in my life, but I don't remember them just because I knew not to take it literally and just stared for a moment and said, "...what?"

This just happened recent on msn with a new friend.


Him: Do you feel that some music is "too heavy" for you?
Me: No. why
Him: That irks me when some people say that some music like death metal is too heavy for them
Me: Oh, I don't understand it. How can it be heavy? It's a song, words
Him: That's being literal
Me: How so?

Then I go asking mu husband what it is as my buddy is typing and he explains it to me while my husband said it means they can't take it, it's too much and I said "That be base."
Then my buddy rephrased the question and asked me if I feel that some music is too loud for me.

(I hope my buddy here doesn't mind me posting about our chat)

When I was in kindergarten, the teacher said we would be taking a field trip (my very first field trip) to the kids space museum. And I thought that made absolutely no sense and I asked how we could be going to a museum if she said we would be going on a field trip. I don't remember what her response was but I do remember asking afterwards if the museum was in a field. And I think she said something about how the museum HAD a field but was not IN a field.
Then I think I asked why she said we would be going on a field trip to a museum and whether we'd be going to a field or to a museum. And she was all "wtff?" and one of my guy classmates called me stupid and the teacher gave him a time out.

At some traffic intersections there are signs like this:



Whenever I would be waiting to turn left if the traffic light color would change I would slam on my brakes.

I was so scared that I was going to go through when the traffic arrow was yellow.

I had had my driver's license for more than five years when I learned that it is okay to go through if the arrow displayed is yellow.

Last edited by matt on 20 Dec 2009, 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

I used to wonder why they were called field trips if you don't go out in the field. Instead we went to places.

uhhhh lol?

^^^^^^^^^^^

In primary school for a "time out" we had to fill in a form concerning our behaviour.

One of the boxes had the words, "Right now I am feeling..." as a prompt for the student. One time I wrote, "Hot, because I just got back from recess." The teacher though I was being a smart alec and sent me up to the next level of punishment, the dreaded "buddy class". That didn't make any sense either, as they did not treat me like buddies should.

When on the phone with my friend asking what he was doing that particular night, he said to me, "We don't have to do something every night." I replied, "We don't do something every night." To that he replied, "I wasn't being literal, you Aspie!" I didn't take offense to it because it's a point of conversation for us and we all find it funny.

I rememver coming across the phrase "glued to the TV" and thinking of people actually stuck to the TV with PVA glue!

Anyone for a literal example of taking something silly?

I gave my 6 year old daughter a pen and notepad and asked her to take down my license number for an insurance company form and she came back holding my license plate in her hands. No idea where she got the screwdriver.

One incident that comes to mind, is the first time a neighbor greeted me, with the phrase, "How's it going?" I was both surprised and annoyed, because I thought he somehow knew about the craft project I had been working on. I figured he must have been peering through my windows or something. So I didn't answer, choosing to retreat in a haughty silence.

Literal example of taking something silly topic

I would read the titles of my mother's mystery novels and the visuals were strange indeed:

The case of the Careless Cupid (cupid shoots arrow astray)

The case of the half waked wife (A sleepy woman in bed with her husband--I imagined my own mother)

The Case of the Backward Mule (I imagined a donkey ass backward )

Murder up my sleeve (How did murder get up there? )

The Case of the Velvet Claws (I had a hard time visualizing this one)

The case of the Murderous Cow ( Believe it or not)

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I hate fiction.