The AS perspective on "figures of speech"

Post Reply New Topic

We are also from the south. My stepmom is a master at using figures of speech. My son who has AS has learned the meaning of alot of them just from me translating our conversations with her. Our favorite:
"Rode hard and put up wet" means you look rough or tired
your running around like a chicken with its head cut off" means your confused
You don't have a snowball's chance in hell" means not likely to happen
Barking up the wrong tree" means looking in the wrong place or a situation to be avoided

I'm AS and from the south, and I'm actually pretty good with figures of speech, sarcasm(etc.) if I use the ones I know and create. Conversations are boring without some witty humor.

I'm personally a big fan of figures of speech. I like using them.
My favourite simile:
"Spending a day in that guy's shoes would basically be sitting in an iron outhouse in Hell".

I can think up sarcastic remarks fairly quickly but am not good at interpreting sarcasm from others. I might "get" the sarcastic tone but not why they are being sarcastic.

I was slow to understand sarcasm and I still miss it a lot. Though I can deliver sarcasm with the best of them. Then I have been accused of sarcasm when I was completely innocent.
Sarcasm seems to go hand in hand with non-literal speech.

Notice that the OP hasn't really gotten a helpful description of the AS method of language comprehension.
It's just a thing that isn't natural. I think NTs pick up on expressions because they listen to the "flow" and can learn context and apply it more generally. People on the spectrum are listening and trying to make sense of every word so we interpret every word.

I'll respond to figure of speech questions with a literal answer said in a humours way -I use that time to figure out what the person is actually asking.

Think of it this way. We're pretty much entirely honest, and we expect other people to be too. Figures of speech are generally dishonest statements/questions so we're not expecting them. We instead intrepet it as you making a mistake in describing what you want to say.


however, everyone has trouble with figures of speech at first. i know in my education classes we were taught to have young children draw two pictures for figures of speech. One that showed what the figure of speech said, and one that showed what it meant. So for raining cats and dogs they'd draw a picture of cats and dogs falling out of the sky, and a picture of a downpour

in the best of times it is still bad.

consider

Do you want a cookie?
Don't you want a cookie?


Do you want a million dollars?
Don't you want a million dollars?


Well, do you or don't you?

Eventually I figured out that when prefaced with don't, the intended meaning is that
it is the opinion of the speaker that you do want what ever is offered, and they are trying to verify that
you agree with their opinion.

Someone once told me that 'Raining cats and dogs' has it origins in medieval europe, where the rain was often so hard in the cities, it would drown large numbers of cats and dogs, leaving them littering the streets.

Oh man I used to think my parents were going to get arrested for "drinking and driving". It made a lot of sense to me that it would be dangerous to take a drink while driving since it involves tilting our head back and taking attention from the road. I had no idea all of those drinking and driving commercials and billboards were actually talking about drunk driving.

When I was little my parents got me a book that explained all kinds of figures of speech. Like piping hot, in a pickle, etc etc. It also helped explain simile and metaphor to me, which is another concept I had a hard time getting straight.

When I searched Amazon I found a lot of similar books.

Link to my amazon search

You could actually be arrested for drinking and driving if your behaviour was deemed to be dangerous.

I can usually recognize when someone uses a figure of speech because it's completely nonsensical. I usually just think they're stupid for saying something so ridiculous, even if it is common. A callous and arrogant attitude, I know, but who made this stuff up?

I mean, there are some I know and a few I've used, but many are completely absurd. What are people thinking when they say this kind of stuff?

Then again, I often mis-hear words so sometimes I assume something is a figure of speech because I don't understand it. I mis-hear "Please dry the dishes" sounds like "He sighes for fishes" and I assume that's some wierd saying.

Or the waiter says the special tonight is "chicken and rice". I hear "Chicken and Ice," express my disgust, and ask my parents (not so discreetly) why anyone would want to eat chicken and ice. Of course, I am used to people eating all kinds of things i find disgusting since i have so many sensory issues with food. So this actually seemed kind of logical.

Where I'm from in California, we pronounce "almond" like "salmon". sa-mun (a as in at)
Once I was at a cafe here in Tucson and I ordered an "Almond Chicken Salad" sandwich. The girl looked at me with this horrified expression and asked me to repeat it twice. She thought I was saying "Ham and Chicken" or "Ham 'n Chicken". Which would be a silly sandwich, indeed.