Pedantic speech and writing - a question

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I have no current explanation for the trait. However, I remember having to use carbon copy telephone message pads when I was a student worker in the school office.

It seemed more like a confidence issue at the time but there was so much pressure to get the wording of the messages just right, especially while trying to capture all of the necessary information. The effort was utterly maddening.

I just had a discussion with my fiance about this, so here's my theory of the evening. I tend to be quite pedantic in the manner of my speech, and in my writing. He is quite the opposite and likes to speak in "vagaries" as I term it. He often employs general slang terms to express himself. I find this maddening and, ultimately, in my quest for truth/understanding, I must question him as to the precise meaning of every word.

I will give you an example:
In passing, he described one of my poems as "out there." I am well aware that this phrase means different, but I first think of the literal sense "away from here." I then extrapolate from there and think of every possible shade of meaning he is trying to convey with those two words. I then examine it in relation to all the other words in the sentence and attempt to discern why he, or anyone, for that matter, would use that as an adjective for a poem. I believe that I do this because I miss entirely the tone of voice, facial expression, etc. of the person I am conversing with. I'm sure someone else would be able to pick up on all the other subtle clues that people emit and would not have to subject such a cliched phrase to an exhaustive analysis.

Since I rely solely on a person's choice of words and the interrelation of them, I see all of the possible meanings. Because I think in this manner, I feel compelled to discuss things in extremely deliberate and analytical detail so that whomever I'm conversing with will instantly ascertain the full sense of my thoughts. This matter is further complicated because I think in pictures, so I must translate everything that I see into a far less precise language. Inside my head, each picture is worth far more than 1,000 words. Because a deficit in the ability to comprehend social situations, facial expressions, etc. is at the core of AS, I believe our speech becomes pedantic because we must compensate drastically in this area. We are then perceived as demonstrating "excessive learning" because we are profoundly less adept in other forms of human communication.

The bonus: This style of thinking about language makes me really, really good at crossword puzzles!

How come I didn't know this before? Didn't you see this http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... ent#801795 ?

Growing up, I hated having a british sounding "plumb" in my voice. At least I could blame it for feeling like I didn't fit in - lol

I've got the overly formal speech when talking to professionals one on one. I’ve got a head full of words that trot themselves out when the mostly mute and monotonous madman speaks about a certain subject (i.e., my illness) -- fortunately or un- it masks the severity of my autism to professionals in that it requires an external factor to speak for me to reveal the severity, 'He doesn't speak out there....'

I don’t know much about how I write because I usually hide behind the rhyme.

Thats dumb. It isn't so obvious now, but I used to be SO quiet ****BUT**** when I spoke of my interests, I was a chatterbox. That is TEXTBOOK! AND, people that have a problem, tend to have it as an interest, EVEN if they are NT, so the psychiatrists should compensate for that. It is almost like "heisenberg's uncertainty principle".

Is it pedantic to go over your test paper for spelling and grammar errors and correct them before you can actually do the work?
I hate it when you have to read along with someone reading out loud. Eventually someone misspeaks a word or forgets one and then that is all I can think of for the next paragraph.
I also argue with my brother about the choice of words that people use. It is usually something like the correct usage of the words masticate, dessicate, and decimate (destroy one out of ten, btw) or the appropriate usage of prefixes and suffixes.
I learned to not bring up such quibbles with teachers and other people unless it causes me to completely not understand what someone is trying to say. With my brother I get to unleash the full might of my mental dictionary as he likes to debate and discuss strange things.

I've always objected to this as a diagnostic tool. We're not being pedantic; we're being precise.

If a college professor's manner of speech is like that of a textbook, it's because he or she is a learned scholar. If a person with autism speaks in this manner, it's because he or she is pedantic.



If I, in a conversation, were to use the word converse instead of talk, I'd most certainly not only get plenty of but a lot of as well. God forbid I should ever use "Masticate properly or you'll choke!" That would be too much!

My mother speaks of cogitating!! !!

Steve

thanks for the link, Bazza. You didn't know it because one day you said you were talking a break from WP and zip. . you were gone.

Merle

It's a huge double standard. Plus, by pointing out that our linguistic accuracy makes os different, NTs are actually pointing out how badly they themselves use language. You'd think they'd want to emulate us, and yet clearly they don't because they single out the behaviour as a symptom of a disorder.

I hate it with a passion when others say "haitch" instead of "aitch" and have to use all my self-restraint not to correct their pronunciation. It is incorrect to say "haitch" but very common. I think this must count as an example of pedantry.

Pardon me, but I don't believe I recognize the sound. Are you referring to the sound of the letter "H"?

thank you,

Merle

Amen. I got really upset when answering a question and the teacher said to use my own words and not just repeat what the textbook says. Unless the text you read was using imprecise or slightly inaccurate words, why would I want to loose definition by using less precise wordage. I suppose you could take a couple of sentences and reword them into a paragraph or two to be certain that someone could not misunderstand you, but they never give you enough time nor want you to do so.