Being literal

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Hello,

Could anyone give examples of when you have interpreted something (could be something you heard/read) literally?

I read on a previous thread that someone made the point that similes are easy to understand because they typically contain phrases such as, "like" and "as", e.g. "fast as lightening." But, metaphors are more difficult. Although, they are fun to create , even though other people don't understand them.

Thanks

I don't normally take things literally, especially not metaphors. I mean, come on, a person with average IQ would automatically know that ''it's raining cats and dogs'' doesn't actually mean real cats and dogs are coming down from the sky. I knew about that expression ever since I was, like, 3.

I can say that there are a lot of metaphors said on WP and the posters always get it.

I do generally understand when somebody's bantering too, although occasionally I do wonder what they're talking about and I kind of answer like I took it literally. Then I feel stupid or I worry that I might of made them feel stupid. Like yesterday a man at work (who usually banters a lot) was teasing a woman there. Then he walked into the room where I was and said to me, ''you wouldn't think she's 41, would you?'' I knew he was joking, but I didn't understand what he was getting at exactly, so I was like, ''oh....is she 41?'' I do know a lot of NTs tend to tease each other about age as they get older for some reason. Maybe I'll relate more to their age jokes when I get older.

raining cats and dogs... actually I think the first time I heard it I had to ask why the term was invented. I like reading the stories behind metaphors so that I can remember it and the association. I guess what I am getting at is, that it wasn't "obvious" to me at the beginning.

I remember being told by a teacher to 'put some elbow grease into it', when I was cleaning the whiteboard. I honestly thought she must have been talking about the cleaning fluid. But, I was very young and had never heard the term before.

I´d have reacted exactly the same way.

The first time I heard my brother brag about "banging" some girl, I thought that he was beating her up.

I've heard that it's related to Cockney rhyme for "it's raining f***ing lots!"
I don't know if that's right.

When my mother talked about someone being "fired" from a job. I thought she meant he was set on fire.

Also on a 3rd grade assignment was a set of situations and was given 3 choices of what it meant - a "correct" non-literal meaning; an "incorrect" non-literal meaning; and the literal meaning. I chose the literal meaning on all the questions and did not understand why the teacher got real mad at me.

When my mom talked about these men cutting corners when they put siding on our house, I told her they had to cut them to fit it on our house.

When my science teacher said another science teacher caught him with his pants down, I wondered why did he have his pants down.

I was in high school.


But yet I never really took raining cats and dog literal. First time I had heard it was on Rugrats and I thought Stu was lying when he said that. Then I heard my speech therapist say it and I knew then she meant it's raining hard outside.

Similarly, when I was in the fifth grade, we had these pottery projects we were working on in art class. When my teacher told the class that she was going to "fire them up," I thought she meant that she was going to set them on fire. I didn't realize until later that she meant she was going to put them in the kiln.

I've found that these kinds of blunders are usually due to not having a vital piece of information--eg in the above example, not knowing that pottery is usually finished by being kilned.

I think that the metaphor, "raining cats and dogs" creates a rather surreal mental image of an impossible situation that would be unlikely to be taken literally.

But, it seems that a lot of comedy relies on being literal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi0Ih6ff3nQ

It's not that simple. A person can take "it's raining cats and dogs" literally without actually expecting to see cats and dogs raining down from the sky. Like me, they might become confused without automatically thinking about the possibility that the statement is a metaphor, or argue with the person who used the metaphor, or like LeagueGirl they might come up with a theory-of-mind-type explanation for why the other person is saying something that is obviously not true/real.

Literal interpretations are what initially occur to me when I hear/read something, even if the phrase is known to me. Obviously, if it is known, I catch myself before actually reacting to the literal interpretation, and even if it's not I can usually at least tell if it's absurd.

These interpretations can be a source of humour to me, especially since I love puns and wordplay. I used to deadpan it all the time when people phrased themselves sloppily, but that tended to cause offence, so I've learned to rein it in. (Look, a metaphor!) I still cut loose around people I know will take it the right way, though.

I've seen "raining cats and dogs" incompetently translated literally; that was certainly quite amusing. There are other metaphors used in Swedish for hard rain; that's just not one of them, so that definitely amplified the absurdity of the phrase.

When I was I child I asked my parents since there are rifles is there leftfils for lefties.

Someone in Junior High asked me if I was straight and I said no, I'm curved slightly. I thought they meant body posture/spine. The bullying got ten times worse after that since I 'admitted' to being Gay, which was the single worst thing to admit to in school back then. I remember one of my parents said they wanted to strangle the other and I was petrified for hours until I learned it wasn't literal.

Where do I begin?

"Overflow carpark" "Oh, look, mummy, that must be the carpark you're only allowed to use if there is a flood and the water overflows."

"Free cash" Can I have some, please? (Not my fault the sign was supposed to say "this ATM does not charge commission for cash withdrawals" and all the NT people mysteriously knew what it meant).

My fellow High School students were teasing a boy because he was developing "bumfluff," to which I said in astonishment: "how do you know he has any? Have you looked?"