taking thing literally

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hi i have such a hard time i dont understand expersion .like saying and stuff .i take it the way it sounds .anyone else like that some have beenb funny after explained to me .i dont care whenb im around people who know me .but i think i throw strangers off buy what i say /im so honest

One of my teachers said that my school is going to be like a boot camp. I guess she meant that she was going to be a bit more strict or something. I thought that the school was actually going to be turned into a boot camp.

Hi autti34. I have some problems with expression and taking things literal too. It was stronger when I was young than it is now. I still get very confused in some situations.
It can be confusing, but it can be funny at times like you said.

Welcome to Wrong Planet

I take things literal sometimes.

that like when i work at this place one of the teachers was taking to us it was break and she said that the other teacher we didnt like .had a brown noise so i walk over to her .look at her .walk back to the group and said she dosnt have any brown on her noise lol well they all about die laughing then had to tell me that it an expersion

Yep! That is VERY funny. It's good to see yoiu keep your humour about it. I do too and I think that I am so funny sometimes!

my main problem with taking things literally is that i believe people say what they mean and mean what they say (as i do).

this means a comment like "i'll phone you later" means i will stay up until all hours waiting for the call, even though i try to persuade myself that people mean "later in this lifetime" rather than "later today".

i generally have little problem with figurative language. generally, if something sounds unlikely if taken literally, i work out - by association - what it is they actually mean. unless the person annoys me, in which case i'll ask them to explain, at length and in great fetail, what exactly it is they mean never fails to bug the bejaysus out of 'em

Last edited by vetivert on 07 Dec 2005, 4:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

Verivert, I have done the same. I have wasted whole weekends waiting for people to show up that had no intention of doing so.

When I was young, if a friend of the family was coming at 5:00pm, I would sit in front of the clock waiting for 5:00pm. Then as the minutes past, I would get more frazzled the later past 5:00pm it became.

I don't sit in front of the clock anymore but I still have the same crazy thrown feelings to deal with. With better knowledge now than younger though. I just don't know what to do with self while waiting mode is on.

So I have trouble with literal 'time' expectations. I do not wear a watch anymore because it confines me too much as I check the time every ten minutes.

I have to think hard to understand new idioms, and usually only come up with a mental list of possible meanings in the order of most the most probable.

my brother, listening to me after I complained that it was the 3rd time I drove on a certain road that day (I like to get stuff done in one trip) asked me if I wanted a cookie (heavy sarcasm) and I was very confused for a while. I wondered where on his person he would produce a cookie, as he had taken nothing with him from the house. I pondered if I should eat one soo soon after lunch, or if he was about to defecate in the car (the cookies my mother make look like a turd, although they are very tasty) The thought of a cookie bag in his pockets entered my mind and although that prospect was slightly revolting I reluctantly said, "sure" after a minute of total confusion.

Then I finally realized that he was using heavy sarcasm by treating me like I was a kid who did someting that deserved a reward. When I finally got it I laughed quite hard.

My tendency toward literal or one-track thinking seems to come and go depending on how tired or stressed I am, but it is generally a lot less of a problem now than it was 30 years ago. If I'm rested and calm then I usually recognize and tend to understand sarcasm and idioms without any problems, but when tired or agitated I become much more literal. The good news is that there are only so many idioms, and eventually you hear them all. Even on a bad day I can still recognise the ones I've heard before. That doesn't mean I get them all, though. Idioms do tend to be cultural, so new ones come along now and then as a result of culture shift or migration. I think I'm on an equal footing with NTs in those cases, though. When I figure out I've been fooled again I've learned to just laugh at myself.

Funny stories from my childhood:

Since I live in Canada, all packaging is labelled in both English and French. When I was about 8 years old I saw a cardboard box that said
OPEN HERE
OUVRIR ICI
I spent a day or two wondering what would be stored in a box that would require you to open it over ice and what kind of ice you should use -- are ice cubes OK or do you need dry ice?

I was given my first watch at about the same age. It was a Timex. The engraving on the back said "wind daily". So I would get on my bike and ride as fast as I could so that the watch would get lots of wind.

I'm not kidding.

Elfman wrote:

Yep. I still do that unless the person says "I will be there around 5:00pm." Then I merely get frustrated that they cannot commit to a time but less so when they don't arrive at five o'clock.

Also, does anyone else get infuriated when someone says to you "Maybe" and does not give a simple yes or no??

I tend to take things more literally when I am concentrating on something else or just plain distracted in my head. I usually come back with a delayed "What?!?" and give a strange look. And then I realize "Ohhhhhhhh...", hehe.

But I have tried to make jokes out of my literal nature, with things I know how NOT to take literally anymore, and make them funny. Wonderful material since most people are not literal and would never think of things in such a fashion! And often, people even laugh at my jokes these days (though I haven't quite perfected how when to stop).