Verbal Expressions That You Don't Get

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"stretching the truth"; apparently it means to exaggerate; I don't get it.

the truth is the truth; if you're exaggerating, you're not telling that.

I agree. In fact, now that you've said that, Morgana, I think that's one of the main reasons it annoys me when people say that.

Hearing that someone else is also going through some really bad thing just makes me feel worse. It's like saying 'we're all screwed'. I mean, come on. How is it helpful for anyone to say that? It makes it seem like it's just an excuse for why the person saying it doesn't want to listen properly.

Except for the real life changing stuff, frivolity is in the eye of the beholder. I agree that Aspies and NT's as a broad generalisation do have different sets of values. And never the twain shall meet. But I see no evidence that Aspies have a superior sense of what is important in conversation. This very site has no end of frivolities (from my viewpoint), and threads that go on and on about nothing of any great importance.

It's not that "they" avoid the safe topics that "we" are brave enough to tackle head on, but that we have a different sense of 'safe'. Many times I've felt uncomfortable with NT's topics, them being too personal perhaps, and compared to that, talking about the weather is a HUGE relief!

On verbal patterns. I have no problem with figures of speech, especially those sayings that provide an efficient, elegant description of a complex situation. I love words and wordplay. eg "Tail wagging the dog" is a favourite of mine as I encounter it in my work all the time. Projects where 80% of the budget and effort went on a feature used 2% of the time. But especially when I spend so much time in progress meetings, I don't have any time left to actually make any progress on the project! And when the project gets into trouble, they call even *more* meetings It is so much easier to say it's a "tail wagging the dog" situation, rather than: " we have a situation where something of lesser, ancillary priority and significance has somehow taken over and is now seriously effecting the functioning of what is, after all, the main priority".

This, like "the rolling stone gathers no moss", is a more efficient use of words and I like the visual imagery that goes along with it.

Still, although one swallow doesn't make a summer and before I batten down the hatches and make a wagon circle, I'll add that I hate the 'hollow management rhetoric' sayings that are often a longer and less elegant way of saying what you mean eg "touching base", "ball park figure", "best practice" , "facilitate". "think out of the box" etc etc

I'm very much between the Devil and the deep blue sea on this, or is it a rock and a hard place? What I don't get is how come if you don't understand a saying, you don't simply ask the person what it means? Does pride come before a fall? Are you trying to curry favour or are you worried about losing face? It's not rocket science and Google is your friend. Methinks thou doth protesteth too much or are beating about the bush, perhaps. Rack your brains, use some elbow grease and you'll find that reading between the lines is as easy as pie.

'your eyes are too big for your belly'

I took that literally as a kid, and it worried me. Really, too big for my belly? How? I now kind of like that expression.

'this is what I bring to the table'

Despite being a cliche, I always think, 'what table?'. I get it, but it annoys me.

'X is their own worst enemy'

As a kid I always imagined they had some kind of evil antagonist inside them. Like Superman having Lex Luthor inside his body. That's sort of cool, thinking about it.

The one I really dislike, and still kind of don't get:

'Make the best of what you've got' - in reference to pysical appearance. It was always said to me when I was young and insecure about the way I looked. Okay, so say I was to have a huge nose, Klingon forehead wrinkles and a sumo belly. Would I make the most of them by grating cheese on the wrinkles, injuring attackers with the nose and using the belly to crush cans for recycling? What it really means, I think, is, 'wear a push up bra and get your cleavage out if you're not that attractive. Or wear a short skirt if the only good thing about you is your legs.' etc, etc. It implies that women have to market themselves (which I know they have to do anyway). I've never heard it said to a man.

And when I said "frivolous", I was meaning what was pointed out in an earlier post: namely, that people often complain a lot to bond with each other, or just for the sake of complaining. Before I understood this, I would sometimes take these things too literally. For instance, if a woman complained too much about her partner, I would assume she didn´t love him anymore; or, if someone complained constantly about their apartment, I assumed they wanted to move. But if I ever suggested they leave their various relationships or abodes, they would react in total shock or horror. Often, people don´t want any advice on how to handle a situation, or don´t even want anything to change at all.....in fact, I suspect that many people just enjoy complaining! It never ceases to amaze me how I can listen to people complain for hours, and yet they go back to their particular "bad situation" looking happy, as if nothing ever happened. The only thing I can assume is that they were exaggerating, or these things really didn´t bother them that much after all. This, to me, is frivolous complaining: sort of like "being catty", and both are things I don´t understand at all.



Oh me too. I DO complain about things that other people would consider frivolous, I guess, so I feel a need to elaborate on that misunderstanding. If my computer breaks down, it´s the end of the world for me! Also, "little things" can definitely set me off, especially if it requires extra "busy work" from me to rectify them. I think I just feel a lot of anxiety about those things, because it means changing my schedule, having more to worry about, making my day more unmanageable or time consuming. In any case, I was not trying to make a judgment about what people complain about, I was rather commenting on how much the complaining seemed to be a *real* complaint for that person.

Though I'm not entire sure what you're main point is, I'll agree with you here. A lot of threads on here seem frivolous and dry for us old-timers because they've been discussed to death.


I wasn't using the word "frivolous" as a value judgement on the content of conversation. I just don't know a better, more neutral word for what I'm describing. I don't mind complaining about the weather or whatever else comes up in small-talk. Yet I'm calling it "frivolous" because there isn't a whole lot of depth to it, either intellectual or emotional. That kind of conversation is about camaraderie and bonding, but not really an appropriate place to jump right in to serious personal matters.



I don't really find figures of speech "hard". It's just that I don't encounter many of them often enough in my day-to-day life for thier meaning to truly sink in. Perhaps it's different for you but I'm primarily a visual-spatial thinker, and the imigary that naturally comes to mind when hearing a lot of the more archaic figures of speech isn't necessarily condusive to understanding the meaning. So many refer to imagery that is so archaic as to make little sense to most people living in the modern world. I'm sure other people are able to immediately associate a seemingly bizarre and archaic sequence of words with a specific-meaning without having any knowledge of the etymology of the phrase. I'm not one of them though.

If it´s a figure of speech I´ve never heard before, I do tend to take it literally. I don´t think to ask, unless it doesn´t make any sense at all. And people don´t warn you if they´re about to incorporate a figure of speech! The first time I heard someone say they had to "eat crow", I assumed they were going to eat crow; I mean, people eat pigeon, why not crow? This, I´m afraid, is how communication problems occur.

"eat crow" is a good one. If I heard it would I recognize that it's an idiom? Probably. Would I remember the meaning? Not likely. I have no idea what "to eat crow" means even though I recognize that it's some kind of idiom. I haven't' heard anyone use it in a long time so I forget what it means. It seems my mind just isn't built for retaining idioms I only read or hear once in a blue moon. I just used an idiom. I happen to know "once in a blue moon" because it's something I use fairly frequently and hear often.

how do people bond by talking about things with no depth?

i find this counterintuitive

I think eating crow means having to accept the humiliation of having made some mistake, usually after having boasted about how one never makes that kind of mistake.

I find it counterintuitive as well, and I'm terrible at bonding by making small talk, but people do this all the time. The idea is that you aren't talking to someone in order to share ideas or convey information, but only for the purpose of engaging them and connecting to them. What you actually say is irrelevant, the only point is to have an interaction.

For instance, I have a really hard time calling someone on the phone if I don't have some specific information that I want to give them, but I know I'm supposed to call friends just to stay in touch, to periodically connect with them, because I will lose their camaraderie if I never call them.

"Does it bother you if a house is bulit with no roof?" I was only told that once when complaning about the costumes and set design of the Lion King stage show which look like a description of an LSD trip. That's a very stupid question becuase wouldn't a roofless house bother them too, espicaly when it rained?

"You'd complain if they hung you with a new rope!" I think being hung with a rope of any quality is a reason to complain.

"Not the sharpest tool in the shed".... Since when are tools known for being sharp?

This is something I never understood either. I´m amazed that most couples seem to develop intimate feelings through flirting and small talk. I guess that was something else I never "got".

"what's good?"

The medium is the message.

Try a blunt saw

I guess not all the tools in the shed are sharp ones. Why can't people be more specific, gabnabbit.

"He's sharper than a rubber mallet, not as sharp as a saw, probably about equivalent to a gardening spade on the sharpness spectrum of tools in the shed" would be more specific.