Do you elaborate?

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People want a yes no answer I then go into a 10min. explanation of something. A friend mention do I think Nintendo has gone downhill and then posted a big reply she said she just wanted a yes/no answer. I tend not to be able to do that. LOL! My parents HATE I don't give yes/no answers.

Well I do give a yes or no answer but then write a 1200 word essay on why I said yes, and also I will explain why I understand why someone would say no. So I cover all angles when answering a question.
I don't usually get a reply.

Just answer yes/no. If they want a longer explanation they will ask for one.

I don't do that. It's not my strong point.

"Yes" or "no" doesn't fit most situations. The answer is usually along the lines of, "yes in some situations, no in others."

I try to explain things exactly as I understand them, and I get very frustrated if I'm cut off or if I can't think of a way to translate my thoughts to language.

After trying to come up with an accurate answer for this and typing out a lot of text I realized how funny it might have been if I had just said "yes".

I rarely elaborate. I had difficulty in school when required to write long papers because I tend to be succinct.

Yes.

The less I say, the easier it is, so I usually just give the shortest answer. ^^;

Yes, and in writing, too. A teacher has commented on my writing as it being exactly like my spoken language and very easy to read. I often elaborate and go off on a tangent, but return to my original topic because the other topic was to be explained to explain the first topic.

Do you find you elaborate when asked about your weekend, for example.

We'll say (to our 10 year old) "tell everyone about your train ride" and rather than picking out the highlights, he'll go into all these minute, irrelevant (to us) details that bore everyone to tears. It makes me feel sad to see people's eyes glazing over, tuning out or starting to talk among themselves... and when I try to help him along or cut him off he gets really upset.

But, you know, at a social setting like a dinner party, no one wants to listen to a 10 year old talk non-stop for an hour about the minute to minute play by play of his trip.

Example:

We got up at 8:00am because we wanted to get to the train yard by 9am and I needed 20 minutes for my shower plus 15 minutes for breakfast and it take another 25 minutes to drive to the train yard. We had toast and leftover confetti rice for breakfast. I rode in my dad's red Subaru which gets pretty decent gas mileage for an all wheel drive vehicle. It was really cold out so we had to warm up the car first. Then we had to scrape the ice off the windows. etc. etc.

I write as if I'm explaining something to you or writing a book in a way. I want a catchy title and my first research paper had swearing in it which the teacher put OMIT I didn't see why they were an issue they seemed like powerful words and feelings which I wanted to get across to the reader. I write for people NOT for the teacher or an A or the class.

So, what's wrong with that?



Sounds like one of my conversations, actually. When asked to tell a story like this one, I'm either very terse and give too little detail, or I ramble on and on. I've learned over time to cut it short and edit -- mainly because people are sometimes rude and will cut me off midsentence if I don't (and, yes, I do realize it's out of desperate self-preservation and subtle tends not to work with me, but still...) -- but I have to remind myself to edit out the minutia and not go off on tangents, especially if I'm really interested in the story I'm telling.

Just out of curiosity, how does your son handle word problems in math? I always had trouble with them because I'd want to know what color the trains were, where they were going, how many people were on them, why they wanted to go to Detroit or Pittsburgh or where ever, etc., etc., when all the teacher wanted to know was how fast they passed each other. I was in high school before I learned to underline the parts of the problem that could be used to answer the question and focus on those bits.

Yes and according to my former school teachers, I elaborate too much. Whenever it was required to write a book review or answer any kind of question in writing I would end up needing to use the back of the worksheet plus pages from my exercise book. I got many comments saying things like..."It's great that you are enthusiastic about your work, but try cut out the unimportant details in your answers/descriptions".

People in real life often tell me that as well but in a different way..."Yeah, I get the point. There's no need to go on about it for half an hour!"

Actually I don't elaborate in conversations because the words don't simply come to me.

Someone will ask how I've been and I'll say 'good' and maybe say one or two other things. Minutes later I'll remember more of what I could have said.

If only I had that kind of memory. Does he say all that without pausing to take a breath?

Hehe I suck at yes or no questions. I always, like you said, give in at least one extra detail.
Usually when people talk to me, if I'm not too acquainted with them or I don't really wanna talk, I won't elaborate. I don't like making conversation with random people directly. Like when I go to a new place and meet new people, they often try making conversation with me like "How are you?" I just say "I am good." and I say nothing else. Of course the other person gets all uncomfortable and they try again. To which I never elaborate and they keep getting uncomfortable and say nothing else.
But with friends or family or when I DO wanna talk, I always go on for like 5 minutes, which for a conversation is a lot of time. Hehe. I stop caring whether or not the other person is interested after the 10th sentence of elaboration. Heehee