unusual love of letters and words, anyone else? Aspie thing?

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Ever since I was a little kid, I've had a very passionate interest in letters and words that does not typically have any relationship to what the letters and words actually mean. I have a very high verbal IQ but I think this is separate from that. But maybe related.

For example, I LOVE the word diphtheria (the way it looks visually and the way it sounds) but of course it's a terrible illness so I don't love the word BECAUSE of what it means. I just like it in and of itself. Particularly the silent h after the p just does it for me. I mean, it's just awesome. There are tons of examples like this that I won't bother to list. I also will tend to pick up on certain phrases, doesn't matter the meaning, I will just like to say them over and over again in my head. And sometimes I catch myself muttering them out loud, and people are like "umm what are you doing?" I like certain quotes too, in an NT fashion, but that is for their meaning and the way in which that author has used language. This is something different. It has to purely do with sound and visual patterns of the words.

This also extends in to letters--I have specific letters/letter combinations that I love and some I really don't like. And they usually come in pairs. I.e letters that often are used interchangeably and make the same sound. Two of the ones I feel most strongly about are J and G and K and C. I MUCH prefer C and G. This especially comes across when the letters at the beginning of words, and specifically in names of people. It really bothers me when people spell Katherine with "K" instead of a "C" for instance. Or Jeff with a J and not a G for Geoff. Not to the point where I won't be friends with the person, but it just because something I always think about. If I know a Katherine with a K, I always think about her as such. This has also led me to have somewhat of an obsession with names and the way they are spelled. When I meet someone I feel a strong desire to know how their name is spelled, otherwise I feel like I don't actually know them. So, typically, I will ask shortly into the conversation because it will bother me so much. It's a bit of weird question, I guess, but I just really want to know! I think this might have something to do with the way I see all words visually in my head when people talk or often when I'm thinking. Does anyone else get what I'm talking about? Is that an Aspie thing? Like, when someone is talking, I literally "see" the words that they are saying flash across my mind, and specific words that are important to the conversation tend to "pop out". This also goes for knowing people's names. When I think of someone I know, I think about how their name is spelled. THAT is the name for me, not how it sounds. Lily and Lillie are NOT The same name at all. Neither are Catherine and Katherine. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm Elisabeth with an S and I have never felt that other Elizabeth's with Z's have the same name as me. When other kids would tell me they had the same name as me and it was "Elizabeth" it would really bother me. Still does.

I want to make it clear that I don't "hate" my least favorite letters, they just read very harshly both visually and phonetically in my mind. It's jarring, I don't know how else to explain it. They just make me feel anywhere from slightly irritated to kind of disgusted. Sometimes I'll feel like certain words or letters are "poking" my brain. It doesn't hurt, it just feels uncomfortable. It has also made me a spelling Nazi, haha!

The weird thing is, that I did not realize this wasn't quite normal until I mentioned it to a couple of friends casually by asking them "what is your favorite/least favorite letter?" Most people laughed and were like what...? Um, I don't know, I don't have one. This was pretty shocking because I have always had a favorite letter and so I thought of it as just like having a favorite color. Apparently this is not so. I guess for most people, letters and words don't illicit certain feelings, sensations, or emotions other than the specific meaning of the word?

I'm just curious if anyone else out there has experienced something similar?? I wasn't sure if it was a common Aspie trait, or just something weird that I do!

Lexical-associated synesthesia (being able to associate a color, image, taste, or feeling with a particular word or letter) is common enough to where more than one Aspie (and several non-Aspies) has reported not liking the way that certain words or letters "feel." This may have something to do with how sensitive and detail-oriented Aspies tend to be; the harshness of the letter "K," for example, would leave more of a "sting" on the ear and ears of a more sensitive person than on the ears and eyes of a slightly less sensitive person.

Aspies tend to emotionally respond to different things than most people do; while a certain facial expression may illicit zero or little emotion in some Aspies (though they can illicit strong reactions in those with less pronounced social deficits), a pattern on a T-shirt or the way that books are arranged in a room may warrant a greater internal (and possible external) reaction. Aspies tend to be more detail-focused than the average person and are thus more moved by details.

I am not lexically sensitive myself, though I do have a supposedly high verbal IQ; that being said, I can easily understand how one can find the letter "K" to be a bit jarring. If I had to pick a favorite letter, I would pick "p"; in written form, it has both a straight edge, though in the opposite direction of most letters, and a curve, and, in spoken form, it has just the right amount of "pop" to it without being too harsh (this may have something to do with the fact that my first name is Paula, though).

I don't have much time to write on this, but it sounds like an exotic form of synesthesia, which is where senses overlap. I am a synesthesiac as from the first time I learned the alphabet each letter has always had a specific color, and these colors have never changed, I also around age thirty began to see very bright auras like neon lights or sometimes soft colors like powder coming out of other people's bodies or my own, plus other unusual pohenonema, and this went on for several decades but rarely see them anymore. I think many people on WP probably have different version of synesthesia...

I can relate, certainly. I have had sensitivity to certain words since childhood. When I was 6 my favorite word was Massachusetts, just because I liked the way it sounded. I would say (and spell) it over and over again. During my teens, I hated the word "yellow" so much that it nearly brought me to tears.

Names spelled differently are not the same name, I agree. For instance, my daughter's name is Margo. I really wanted to spell it Margot, but I knew everyone would mispronounce it, that she would forever be explaining the silent t. But now it bothers me, and when I see it written down I just feel weird about it, like it isn't her "real" name. It sounds the same, obviously, but in my head it is just "different". Thankfully at least, I decided to spell her middle name the way it should be: Sabine; not Sabean or some other weirdness that is easier for Americans to pronounce.

I do see certain letters as colors in my head, but it is fairly mild in my case--not every letter has a distinct color. The letter Z is invisible to me. It wasn't until last year that I learned this sort of thinking about letters was less than common, so I find it all very fascinating now.

I can completely relate to much of what you've written, and also find the word diphtheria really beautiful. To me, words have directions and I guess what I would call "balances." For me, the word diphtheria, despite its meaning, is really great because it sits still (rather than going right or left or up or down) and it is well balanced thanks to the "phth" in the middle. I see the middle of the word, the end of "dip" and the beginning of "theria," as one says the word, as a kind of blooming or one thing coming through another.

Like you related, I have lots of words that I think "look" and feel wonderful, or terrible, completely outside their meaning. For example, I love the word "Thursday." The word is well balanced and feels really soft, but sturdy too. As long as I'm going with days of the week, I hate the word "Friday," despite loving the day itself. Friday points right, and is harsh sounding. What I see when I hear Friday is green and gold and purple looping circles, and I don't like them at all. They are noisy and over-the-top.

I don't relate to letters quite as much as it seems like you do, but I can really relate to the different-letters-make different-names thing. Using your examples, when I see the name Jeff it is totally different than seeing the name Geoff. For me, Jeff points right and is a pretty boring line. Geoff is curly and sits still. I love your example of Lily and Lillie. For me, Lillie is much bigger and rounder than Lily. I typically don't feel an urge to ask people how they spell their names, but if I find out that people spell their names different than I would have had it, it really tends to change how I view and see that person. Also, I have a really hard time with people's names unless what their name "looks" like resembles what they look like or their personality. I know some people with "sharp" names who are slow and laidback and some people with soft names who are sassy or tall and thin, and I have the hardest time remembering their names. Usually I will match different names to them and have a hard time remembering to use their actual name and not the one I think of them as.

I also thought the way I thought with words was totally normal. I discovered that my thinking about words was not super typical one night when I was lying in bed with my wife talking and I was having a really hard time finishing a sentence because I was having a hard time matching a word's pictures to its sound. I could see the word really clearly that I wanted to use but couldn't match it to its sound, and I tried to explain to her what the word looked like so she could help try to match it. Needless to say (now), she had no idea what I was talking about.

I used to LOVE the Letter P!

P P P P P P P P P P P P P. Even now, I love the sound of the 'p' phonic being uttered.

I love making words out of the letters and numbers on license plates. I get really excited if the letters and numbers also resemble internet words....such as LOL, FTW and so on.

Have you considered that your love of letters and words might be part of hyperlexia?

Mafia don Mel was gunned down in a barber chair today by hit men hired by his rival Sal.

You know. Those two rival racketeers: Mel anoma, and Sal Minella.

Horrible diseases, and mobsters, both often have musically beautiful sounding names.

Diptheria is indeed a pretty cool word as well (even if doesnt sound Italian).

I experience something similar. I will often choose which words I use in writing based on their spelling, their inclusion of my favorite letters, things like that. When speaking, I choose words that I prefer the sound of. My favorite letter is K, it has always simply *felt* right. My favorite sound is eɪ, as in raid, lay, same. Sometimes I am affected very strongly by this, to the point where I cannot stand people using a common nickname they have for me and I may snap at them after having asked them to stop, or I will completely rewrite something to make the words feel better. I am always aware of the spelling and sound of whatever I am reading/hearing.

One of my special interests, if you would call it that, is often considered quite strange- I write out words in their International Phonetic Alphabet forms. I have filled books.

I like how letters connect and flow together much like many others here. I especially like the word 'plethora'. It has a good mix of both vowels and consonants and just seems like a beautiful word in many ways.

Definitely relate. Patterns & symmetries are funnels for sure. I see your post, and suddenly I think, what is this trait, then: "involuntary but not unwelcome" comes to me a bit prior to unpacking my own phrase. Then I see the double negative is matched by the double use of "u" ... and so on. I'd suggest you might have the makings of a poet. This job pays zilch, alas, but today's poetry could use some structure and that's where you could help out.

Cool!! Someone else that loves letters. :)

Autistic Love Letters

I started a thread on it, but didn't realize this one existed. :)

I am not very good with writing love letters,
but I can play with them.

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/20 ... tters.html