Issues with assumptions

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I also do this. The result is that I may begin to laugh at something which nobody else finds funny. When asked what is funny, I can rarely make understood the source of my mirth. Even if I realise that somebody is speaking figuratively, I may laugh at the literal meaning of their words, too.

I also do this.

I remember once laughing when someone said "English is the Lingua Franca of the modern world" and them being genuinely perplexed as to why that was funny.

For those who may not get it, "Lingua Franca" means a bridge language used between those who normally speak different languages, but it's literal meaning is "language of the Franks" which is French — hence the humour in the statement.

Are they actually unaware they are using hyperbole, though?

Or does it just not occur to them that anyone would not only fail to recognize their statement as hyperbole but would also, for some reason, decide that "I could" means "I have decided to"?



My dad has done that with me forever (and always patiently tries to explain the joke if I don't get it...with varying success).

It's not the same as the game you have with your friends, though; There is less back and forth and/or totally different back and forth where instead of ending up with a string of apparent non-sequiters I (or, occasionally, my dad....I am not as likely to see the hilarious alternate meanings and not as quick with responses) will act like the ridiculous/hilarious interpretation was intended and it can turn into a bizarre running joke.

English IS the "lingua France" of the modern world despite the irony of the phrase.Not only is the literal meaning of the statement "English is the French language" but you're saying "English is the French language" in Latin.

Latin, and French,both took their turns as "lingua francas" (universal languages) in earlier centuries.

But thats another thing. Your teachers always told you "not to mix metaphors" when writing your compositions. And its hard thing to do, to not mix metaphors, because of the many catchphrases folks use with out thinking. So it takes work not to combine them.

My favorite mixed metaphor was in an essay by George Orwell written in the mid 1940's. His purpose was to complain about the decline of language. And he wrote "time and time again I read the phrase 'the fascist octopus has sung it's swan song'".

I think that that bares repeating: "the fascist octopus has sung it's swan song".

When I read that in college in the Seventies it was a couple days after I had eaten a dark colored cooked whole octopus sitting on a bed of pasta at an Italian restaurant. So I tried to picture that particular octopus,but with a Hitler mustache, epaulets, and a wearing a swastika arm band. And then tried to imagine it lifting it's eight arms,and then it breaking out into a song (like Whitney Houston, or like Andre Bocceli ). And then to imagine it keeling over dead on the floor. A unique visual to say the least.

Yes. That's why it's funny.

It was a perfectly valid statement; there was nothing wrong with it. However, it can also be legitimately interpreted as something very different. The juxtaposition of the two is what provides the humour.


It's a great visual.

The thing that makes it weirder is that the term "swan song" is a reference to an old folk belief that swans, who are generally silent, sing only once in their lives, and that's just before they die. So the fascist octopus wouldn't be like Whitney Houston or Andre Bocceli, who sing frequently, it would have never sung before. Which might be valid for an octopus, but not for a fascist, since fascists were always singing marching songs.

Seriously, once you start noticing these things, it's like living in a Monty Python universe.

I remember I once made a post online about being stuck behind a cyclist and I had a row of cars behind me so I had to turn onto another road and then turn onto another road to go the same direction and another person got mad at me about my post saying boo f*****g hoo and accused me of going fast because he said I had no reason to go fast. I told him I was actually going below the speed limit so I wasn't speeding and he goes "I didn't say you were speeding, I said you have no reason to go fast." Then he says I was taking him out of context. To this day I still don't know what he means by I have no reason to go fast. I would think it would mean I was going faster than the speed limit so he was telling me I have no reason to go fast but I guess he didn't know what he was really saying and he never made the connection.

It could also be that he identified with the cyclist in your story, and then felt personally offended by what he might have interpreted as your complaint about the relative slowness of cyclists. Sometimes road use is a contentious issue, and I've known people to get really invested in their identity as "cyclist" or "car driver".

Like others above, I like to play with the meanings of figurative language too. Often I don't notice what people are actually trying to say, because I notice the humour or absurdities of the word/phrase before I can put it into the context of the conversation. It took me a long time to realise that people found this annoying because it seemed like I was trivialising what they were saying by focusing on an element of speech that they considered to be irrelevant.

He talked about being hit by a pick up truck because the person in it was going way too fast on the street when he should have been going 15 or 25 MPH an hour (had to beat the green light) I don't remember the speed limit he mentioned. So I figured where he was coming from so he was projecting but he was a dick about it and I was sorry for the accident he had to experience from the driver but he said I wasn't sorry so he was a dick and I haven't really talked to him since and then he says he wasn't saying I was speeding but yet he talks about being hit by a driver who was going fast? He wouldn't tell me what he meant by going fast. I even asked another aspie online how he would have interpreted "You have no reason to go fast on the road" and he said "That I was speeding." Then he told me that person is just being a dick to me. Who knows, that man could have just been messing with me giving me a hard time because he is still angry at that person for hitting him so he took it out on me so it was about him, not me. And ironically he once said he might have been diagnosed with an ASD as a kid so I don't know if he really had struggles as a kid or if he was just introverted as a kid so he thinks he might have been diagnosed with it because of the overdiagnosing now in kids. Even my son has that school diagnoses and he is no way autistic or even close to being on the spectrum. So I can't say if the cyclist was another aspie. Also he never apologized for his behavior but lot of people don't talking from personal experience. I look at many possibilities why people don't apologize, not because they are an ass.

Also the cyclist I was complaining about, he never moved to the side to let cars pass and even slow cars on the road have to pull to the side to let the cars behind them pass if they are going slower than the speed limit. Instead of being a dick and honking or ramming into him, I just turned off the road and took another road, problem solved. I know there are dick drivers on the road who get so impatient with cyclists they turn into dicks and start honking at them or racing them to intersections or nearly hitting them because they don't go towards the center of the road, etc. so I can understand the hostile attitude about drivers from cyclists but I don't take offense to it because I am not those drivers. I only take offense if they accuse me of being one of those drivers and projecting.

Belated thanks to League_Girl and naturalplastic for trying to help me understand -- sorry I didn't show any appreciation for that earlier.

I still hope SocOfAutism will post about how people can use figurative language and not be aware of it.

My issue is the opposite of the OP's. I can recongize figrative language and know when someone is pointing out something / saying something figuratively 98% of the time (I'm not perfect after all). However, instead of answering with something figrative/ relevant back sometimes , I end up replying with an answer that makes the person assume I didn't get it, even though I can feel the other answer rattling around in my head. It makes them stare at me even more when I'm sarcastic/ joke around or use metaphors/ hyperbole

I don't know if this is an example of not realizing I used figurative speech but back when I first met Frankie. I was telling him I was reading the Jurassic Park novel and I am enjoying the book so much I didn't stop reading it and he said "You just did." In his mind he was thinking I was reading the book nonstop and I do nothing else so I told him "You have to stop reading to eat, sleep, go to bed, and now you're here." But in my mind I was reading it and wouldn't stop so I was sitting for hours reading it and not putting the book away and not read it for days or months, I would read it when I had the time which was all day long because I was at home and doing nothing else. But I didn't realize what I had really said until he said that response. But I wouldn't know how else to say it to someone who takes things that literal and it wasn't a big deal because he didn't argue semantics with me or say I didn't say this or that like my ex used to.


But people don't realize things they say could be interpreted by so they think they are saying what they mean like to most NTs they think telling someone "Can you close the door please?" means close it but to someone who takes it literal would think they are being asked if they know how to do it so they say "yes" and don't do it because in their mind you didn't tell them to close the door, you only asked if they can. Now if you told them to "Close the door please" then they would do it but wait, maybe telling them to close the door, you could mean any door so even though they see the door open, you could mean any door so you would have to say "close the kitchen door please" and that is the only door in the kitchen so they know what you are telling them. But lot of people don't really think of these things of how their phrases can be interpreted in different ways so therefore they do not know they are using figurative language.


I think people can realize they used figurative language if they listen to the other person when they say how they interpreted it. Like if a parent told their child "Turn that TV off" so the kid turns it off and leaves the room. Later the mother sees her kid is watching TV in the master bedroom. The mother says "I told you to turn the TV off," The kid says "No you didn't." "Yes I did, I told you that when you were in the living room," says the mother. So kid says "but you said that TV so I moved in here to finish my show." The mother realizes she did say turn that TV off but she didn't tell her kid he was done watching TV for today so turn it off. She now knows to rephrase it next time when she tells her kid to turn the TV off.

Another funny story I read online about a parent was her one year old wouldn't stop throwing food on the floor so she told him if he throws food on the floor again, he is done eating so after that he would throw his food on the floor when he is done eating. She realized he took her literal. I knew she meant she would take his food away and have him be done eating for that meal if he did it again but the boy interpreted it as he could throw his food on the floor to end meal time quicker. Now she is in this mess about getting him to stop because he is exploiting that consequence. He had found a short cut to ending his meal times. The mother didn't realize it at the time what she was saying until he was throwing his food on the floor every time he is done eating. Sometimes actions tell you too that you had used figurative language. But yet my parents didn't know they were using figurative language when they would tell me to stop this or stop that and I would do something else. They couldn't understand why I never listened. They never made the connection until I said when I was 11 years old that she didn't tell me to stop teasing, she said stop that teasing so I did a different tease to make her laugh. Then she realized what she had said and it also boggled my mind for years how someone could say "stop that teasing" when they didn't want you teasing them at all. Also if my mom knew I was always literal, why did she think I would understand stop that teasing. But the thing is she didn't realize it either how else it could be interpreted so I think I get it now because it didn't occur to her that if she was told to stop that teasing, she would do another one. She would stop that teasing and not think of another one to do so she made that same assumption about me. Then she wondered why I wouldn't quit harassing her on the way home. She didn't notice the detail about how I did a different tease each time she told me to stop that teasing until I told her.

I'm not sure if "Can you close the door, please?" is figurative language.

I am certain that "Close the door, please," is not figurative language (I could be wrong about this one, too, but I would be surprised if I was).

The part that's similar to figurative language is that you're expected to infer something -- in your examples, you're expected to infer which door the person means, or infer that they are using polite language to indicate that they want you to close the door....but to be figurative language, I think, requires more than just needing the other person to infer something. Inference is required for a lot of literal language, too; "He is eating an apple" requires you to infer who "he" is, but it's not a figurative statement.

But, if this kind of thing is what SocOfAutism was referring to when she said people aren't aware of using figurative speech, then I can see how a person wouldn't be aware of it and how it would be more difficult to figure out the misunderstanding than in situations where you used a metaphor or hyperbole.