Still struggle with understanding sarcasm/irony/metaphors?

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As per the subject title. I just read a post on a different thread that said, "...the difference was night and day." That went completely over my head and I was wondering where I could get some of these magic Prozac tablets that could change the time of day for me....then I realised it was probably just a saying and had to look it up. Goddammit, I really could have done with some of those pills too....

Anyone else here that still really struggles with this even after having this kinda thing explained to you a million times?

I understand them, and actually use them a lot. I can be very sarcastic sometimes. I also tend to use puns a lot.

Now, can I tell if someone is joking around with me or teasing me? No. My boss did this to me often and I never knew how to respond.

Yes. It is like for some reason I cannot get the meaning of certain words no matter how many times I read the definitions. Sometimes I feel like certain sarcastic things are a foreign language that you would only get if you were familiar with the culture of that language.

No, as I used metaphors and other figures of speech regularly in my writing. All of my jobs involved use of the written word in some capacity. However, I do have trouble with sarcasm, not because I don't understand it, but because I know what the person is saying is false. They are NOT "just kidding." They are just afraid to tell the truth directly, so they backtrack and say, "Just kidding." They are essentially lying and covering it up with a joke.

A language consists not just of words. There is also nonverbal stuff in it. You'll struggle with irony if you don't understand that the speaker is joking and that he only says something because he believes that nobody ever takes his words seriously because everybody knows that he isn't thinking that way. But to know this you have to take his position within your mind and ask yourself if he is serious on what he says. For this you have to train to take imaginary the position of a speaker once you hear or read something to understand irony and sarcasm and other rather emotional stuff. It's much easier to understand irony if you are able to hear that he jokes of course.

^ Yes, exactly, there is more than one skill being spoken about here. To split it into two main areas...

Figurative Language
This is where a certain combination of words has a different meaning than reading them word by word. Learning them can be tricky for some people, but once learned, the same pattern of words always has pretty much the same meaning, and even ones we've not seen before usually stand out because they seem ridiculous at first glance. There is one in the OP's signature even - waiting for an event to "blow over" - what's doing the "blowing", and how does an abstract event move "over"? Of course, it's an analogy with bad weather being blown away by the wind, and it's a good example of one that's used so often that it barely registers as being a figure of speech for many people - after a while "blows over" becomes almost like a single word to mean an event that has passed by.

Pragmatics
This is what quite_an_extreme and others have been talking about. In this case, the meaning of the words changes depending on the intent of the person speaking. For example, think of the phrase "OK". That can have dozens of different meanings depending on what the person is replying to, what mood they're in, how they feel about you, whether they're being humorous/sarcastic/facetious/lying/etc., and many more factors. This is much more than just a word skill, it involves non-verbal communication, theory of mind, knowledge of social norms, etc.

Depending exactly what autistic traits a person has, these two (and others) could be difficult in any combination and to any degree. My understanding of figurative language is pretty good, but my pragmatics are all over the place! When people talk about autistic folks being "literal minded", they often mean just the problem with figurative language, but problem with pragmatics are at least as common, if not much more so.

yeah that sounds like me. I do struggle with things like "here comes trouble".

Prodolph, I have not had any trouble understanding that particular expression but then I always heard it as "the difference was LIKE day and night." Emphasis mine of course. Apparently the writer of the post you saw had become accustomed to omitting the word "like" not realizing the difficulties it could cause.

AnodyneInsect, you're not the only one with those difficulties. Many times I have found myself not only looking up words and expressions but once I do so, I then end up looking up the words used in the definition! I have even looked up some of the words in those definitions, digging myself in deeper and deeper.

Trogluddite, that

has perplexed me for a long time. I hear person A offering to do something for person B and person B responds with, "That's OK." And it turns out sometimes that response means "Yes, please" and other times it means "No thanks." A and B seem to understand each other but if I was person A I would be asking, "Well, do you want me to do it or not???"

Such is life on this planet we are stranded on.

Sorry for the confusion. See my clarification here.

(Now, if only we could convince certain people in the politics forum to stop using a certain confusing metaphorical term....)

I struggle quite a lot with this. Especially sarcasm and new metaphors (the metaphor appears as a mental image, then I need to get someone to explain).

I can often tell when someone is being sarcastic. When someone is joking around with me I am often confused but I do get it sometimes when they’re more obvious about it. Idioms almost always get me, even when I’ve heard them before. I can sometimes work out what they mean in the new situation but I have to really think about it. I’ve started asking my boyfriend for an explanation when I can’t sort it out. I was in denial about not understanding them before so it’s all sort of new to me. I feel like a 44 year old child sometimes.

You will have to give examples.

That behavior that you're complaining about does not sound like what I think of as "sarcasm".

Lets say we met from a dating website.

If we met in person and you said "You, NP, are one ugly MFer...just kidding" that would not be sarcasm (whether you believed that I was that or not). Not sure what you would call it. It wouldn't be nice. That's fer sure. But it wouldn't be sarcasm.

However if you said "WOW...you're a real potential matinee idol-youre gonna take Brad Pitt's job!" while rolling your eyes and using a snarky tone to indicate that you really thought I looked like Freddy Kruger then that would be "sarcasm".

Sarcasm is conveying what you mean by stating the opposite of what you mean in an exaggerated way. Not: saying one thing, and then taking it back by saying "just kidding".

Its this "saying one thing by saying the opposite" thing that folks on this thread are talking about having trouble figuring out. Not the behavior that you're talking about.

I get figures of speech, metaphors, sarcasm. Irony is a bit tougher. But I rarely know when people are joking. I used to get so embarrassed. What if I assumed it was a joke and it wasn't? So I never assume it is a joke. My husband lets me know it's a joke when he sees that blank look on my face. When I was younger people complained I was too serious.

I don't always get sarcasm and when I do get it, I hate it with a passion.

The functions of "just kidding" in American English.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fcbf/b ... 694519.pdf

The Journal Of Pragmatics !?

That webpage is HARD to read.

Maybe you can summarize it for us.