Do you take things literally even when you understand them?

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Oh man this is one of my BIG blocks. I am so literal. The one that gets me nearly every time is when someone says, "I'm sorry" if I report something bad happened to me. At one of my first visits with this shrink I got caught in a traffic jam. I made it in time but I was a little stressed. He asked me if I got caught in the jam and I told him I did. His response was, "I'm sorry" and I just looked at him and said, "You didn't do anything" and as I was saying it I realized that it was just him emphasizing. I took it back right away but it was a very awkward moment for me as I felt so stupid.

I have never heard the "Did you win" phrase but that one would get me time and time again too.

Sigh... I hate this part of the disorder as it really makes things challenging...

Heh, I do this all the time. Oops.

Verdandi: Agreed. It's not that it's offensive. It just gets old.

I don't take things literally since I was a child but I do visualize what was said and sometimes get a giggle from it.

i tend to respoind before i think it through.

I don't take things literally since I was a child but I do visualize what was said and sometimes get a giggle from it.

But one time at the machine shop we were called into the break room to get bitched at for wasting time. It sucked because the boss kept saying be more like Todesking he never wastes time so my co-workers were coughing sounds like "brown nose". One employee would spend 20 minutes in the toilet "poop'n" but when you were by the door you could hear his cell phone game being played or him talking to someone on his phone. The boss told him it was like he wasted enough time that it was like he was eating his lunch in the toilet with amount of time he wasting playing in the toilet. So I looked at the cellphone guy and said you eat your lunch while on the toilet, you're nasty. Everyone laughed so I faked laugh to make seem like I was joking. I caught a mean look from the boss for cracking jokes at the meeting. But I guess its better to come off not looking like an idiot.

Last edited by Todesking on 18 Mar 2011, 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I generally take things literally initially (and stupidly answer immediately), but then "get" it soon thereafter (usually...sometimes i never "get it") and feel like an ass.

My mom really hates that. She'll usually tell me off for "trying to act like you're ret*d.". FML

I take a lot of things literally.

"Did you win?"

That's kind of vague actually... more a webslang thing than a general usage thing, I think.

"I'm sorry" was one of my big literal blocks too. Only in the past five years have I been able to acceot it as the display of sympathy as it is intended even thought the literal voice in my head is screaming at them. I actually took offense at it after my mother died - why were they sorry, their mother didn't die. Worse yet they feel sorry FOR me which kicked up all sort of anti-pity sentiments.

My last boss continually asked me why I take everything so literally. Now I know. And she, with the teaching degree... shouldn't she have had SOME clue? There is some basic psychological education required for a teaching license, correct?

I still fail to realise the meaning of 'im sorry'

'did you win' is fairly common here.

Strangely, I picked up "I'm sorry" as a stock sympathetic response at some point.

Yes,I'm sorry doesn't necessarily imply an apology. It can just mean you're being sympathetic. I totally don't get " did you win?". It just sounds kind of sarcastic.

This is one thing that I hate. Once I realize that something is an idiom, I'm fine. I can just learn to deal with it. I just hate that people constantly need to come up with new idioms all the time. I wish they would stop it. It's annoying. It's also silly; it doesn't add anything to the language.

Waddya mean? The question doesn't make any sense!

How can I take anything literally if I don't understand it in the first place? This question makes me wanna pull my hair out!

See: Facetious ^^^^^ <<< link

Yes, I do take things litterally even when I know what people mean by them. Some of the reasons given in the previous posts that I completely relate to:
i do it: * When I find the expression irritating in itself
* When I just get tired of "doing things their way"
* When I am tired or cranky

There is another reason I do it sometimes though, that comes from my childhood experiences I suppose, it's a sort of "embarrassment at having understood". I don't know if I'm being clear here, but I feel embarrassed on people's behalf about what they just said, and it's like I'm giving them a way out by pretending they never said it. Sort of the same feeling you get when you hear your partner telling the exact same joke at every dinner party he goes, sometimes twice the same evening, and you suspect the other people might have heard it from him before since you've heard it SO MUCH, and there is not way you can laugh without them knowing that you are faking it.....Yeah I'm not clear. It's 1 am here