What jokes have you taken literally?

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The first time I heard someone say that I was concrete, I wondered why they thought I was made of the same material as the sidewalk.

The joke exploits the ambiguity in the phrase "man eating shark". The phrase usually refers to a shark that attacks people (Bob went swimming in the ocean but was killed by a man eating shark"). However, the phrase could also refer to a man that is actually eating a shark.

I think, because I was a first child, my parents made such a fuss over how adorable it was that I took things literally that I learned to watch myself at an early age.

I guess when I was a little kid we had this big walnut tree in our front yard, which was inhabited by many a neighborhood squirrel. Our dog would rush at it, and run around barking hysterically at the little critters for hours on end.

Watching our dog have at it with the squirrels one afternoon, my dad told her: "Wolfie, you're such a nut!"

"Wolfie is NOT a nut!" I said indignantly. "Wolfie is a DOG!"


I still don't see why it's that funny that I misunderstood him, but this is one of those stories I still have to hear about nearly twenty years later.

I understand jokes, idioms and figures of speech pretty well and know their historical significance, but I get annoyed with people who seem to talk almost exclusively in idioms or cliches.

In a Mad Magazine I read in the 1970s, they had a very funny take on the saying, "Cat got your tongue?" A couple was sitting in the living room, when suddenly the woman screamed. The cat had jumped on her lap, bitten the lady's tongue, and run off with it in his mouth. I still laugh thinking about it after 30 years!

LOL. Your story reminds me of what I went through with my three year old cousin.

Walking my grandmother's Cocker Spaniel and my German Shepard with him, he asked me way they peed differently. I told him that boy dogs lift their legs and girl dogs sit.

Can you believe that the three year old turned to me and said "Tobey's not a boy, he's a male dog."

Why do we bother to dumb down our speech when talking to some three year olds?

(I had chosen to use the words 'boy' and 'girl' because I didn't think he would understand 'male' and 'female'.)

I remember I used to think people were going to kill themselves when they say "Cross my heart and hope to die."

When I first heard "Raining cats and dogs" on Rugrats, I thought Stu was making it up.

When my mother said my grandfather put a brick in the toilet, I thought he put a real brick in it.

When my mother told me the people who put siding on our house cut corners, I thought they actually cut the corners off the wood so I told her they have to cut corners or how else would they fit the siding on the house.

When my mother mentioned about me saying to my Dad's cousin by asking her about her dead mother, my mother told me I wouldn't want to say "Renee, how did it feel when your mother kicked the bucket," and I said "Why would she kick a bucket?"

I remember the time in high school, a student said in my special ed class his old truck he sold blew up, I actually thought it blew up and I kept asking how can the guy in it survive and not be injured. I found it really hard to believe someone would not be killed from the explosion, nor be burned.

One time my biology teacher was telling us how we need to wear our safety goggles because one day after school, Mr. E came in and caught him with his pants down and I was shocked at him about it.


Up until I was 14, every time I was asked "What's up?" I always looked up.

Whenever my mother called me her baby, I actually thought she was saying I was a baby.

I can remember the time my mother told me when I six that "stupid" is a bad word and "dumb" and "idiot" so I wasn't allowed to use them. I wasn't allowed to say "Shut up" either. But when I learned the F word, my mother told me it was a bad word but when I figured out at age 8 stupid wasn't a bad word, nor idiot or dumb and all the other words I have gotten in trouble for like "duh" and "disgusting" I thought the f word wasn't a bad word either so I kept saying it . It was hard to get me to stop because I didn't understand it was bad. I did at first but when I was put into my new school, kids were saying words there I wasn't allowed to say at home and I somehow figured out, they weren't bad words and my mother was wrong so I assumed the f word wasn't bad either.
That's what happens when you lie to your kids. My mother told me stupid, dumb, shut up, and idiot were bad words but she only said that because she didn't want me to use them because they are hurtful but it all came back to her few years later.


I used to get confused about "Cut it out" and "knock it off" because I couldn't figure out where the scissors were and what scissors had to do with the situation. With "knock it off" I didn't know what they wanted me to knock off.

When a girl told me in my school to stop dragging her nuts, I thought she was pulling nuts behind her so I kept arguing with her about me not having her drag any.

Whenever kids asked me if I wanted ABC gum, I thought it was gum shaped like alphabet so I say "yes" and they give me gum that has already been chewed. Took me years to figure out that's what ABC gum stands for. Before, I thought it was kids tricking me into taking their chewed gum. So I learned to say "no."


When I was seven I asked my friend where she was going and she said "None of my business" and I thought she was telling me I had a business so I kept saying I don't have any businesses.

When I first saw aspies talking about kid gloves in a aspie group, I thought they were talking about kid gloves so I reply and said there is nothing wrong with wearing them and I had worn them to keep my hands warm. It's too keep them from freezing.

I have taken lot of idioms literal. Lot of others I didn't understand but figured it was an expression because what someone said didn't make any sense like the time someone told me to hit the nail in the head. That didn't make sense because why would someone tell me to hit a nail in someone's head, what did it have to do with the discussion we were having on a forum, so I assumed it was a figure of speech. I looked it up in my idiom dictionary and there it was.


There are lot of jokes out there I don't get so they always have to be explained to me. I don't get comics either in newspapers but Family Circus I do usually so I like those the best.

Last edited by Spokane_Girl on 31 Mar 2008, 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's funny because you took it literal. Those things are always funny but they aren't making fun of you when they laugh about it. I look back at my life about me taking things literal too and I think they are funny. Something I can tell other people about because they're funny. It shows how innocent I was and how different I am.

Damien doesn't understand sarcasm at all. I hope he does one day.
And he takes things literally. I find I can't joke around with him.
The other night tho I asked him to 'hop out of the bathroom' So he hopped on one leg out of the bathroom.
I apologised to him but will admit it was kinda funny

That reminds me that my mother took one of the books she owned away from me because it was by a German comedian and she thought I'd take it literally. That was the only book, which I couldn't read... in my childhood.

My misunderstanding of it for the first time is an issue of a language barrier, I guess.



Speaking to children I always use normal, adult vocabulary - if there's a thing a child doesn't understand, I explain this later if asked for clarification. When I was a little child, adults always used normal speech while talking to me and it's why I used to speak in a normal manner, not like a little kid even in the time I was such a child.

Speaking of dogs, I recalled that in my early childhood I used to say "jajnik" (ovary in my native language) every time when I saw a dachshund (whose Polish name in turns is "jamnik"). I wasn't old enough to know about ovaries and I realized the name of those dogs looking like sausages with short crooked legs was jamnik not jajnik but I saw that my mother every time found it hilarious so I prefered using this name to the original name of this breed