Advanced vocabulary

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I recently had a misunderstanding with someone who mistook something I had said for a personal attack. I meant no harm, but I'm afraid that my advanced vocabulary and way of speaking may have been to blame. I have faced this problem many times in the past and each time has made me more afraid of speaking in my normal way. I am paranoid that I may inadvertently offend someone. I understand that this is yet another symptom of Asperger's Syndrome.

I want to know if anyone else has had a similar experience.

As a kid absolutly. Nowdays I have learned my lesson and keep the more advanced vocab out of the workplace where the average IQ is less then 80 no doubt where I work.

I have friends who are intelligent and dont get offended so I am more open around them then at work.

I'm not sure, I tend to that I have a rather basic vocabulary in both my languages though.

When I hear the people at my current school talking, I know I can't talk as well and highly. My autism therapist has said the opposite, she said that my vocabulary is that is rather advanced. Wish she would just talk to the students of my school, she'd be proven otherwise. Well, my vocabulary is better than that of my family, but not nearly as good as that of my friends who all went to grammar school since fifth grade. My classmates throughout seventh to tenth grade knew less vocabulary than me, asking me for the meaning of such words as 'mutated' knowing that I'd know. Seriously, I felt more comfortable talking to them than to my current classmates though, as possibly thick as some people claim they were.

I have an advanced expressive vocabulary and a way less advanced receptive vocabulary, which leads into all sorts of misunderstandings all the time. (In the most extreme form of this, I initially learned expressive language before I understood language at all, which in itself is the reverse of usual and confused people.)

While I'm not anbuend, skeeterhawk, I hope you don't mind me explaining the basics just as well. I'll leave all the details to her, I don't know a thing beyond the following two things:

Expressive vocabulary is that which you actively use yourself in forms of communication, mainly speech and writing.
Receptive vocabulary is used to describe all the vocabulary which is used by others and that you can understand by hearing. I believe writing's included here?

Sometimes people confuse me taking politely and intelligently as being snarky. Kinda like in "Idiocracy". A few people believe that I talk like that to make me feel superior to them because I don't accent every word with an expletive. And my heavy use of sarcasm.

However, like most Rhode Islanders, I drop the "R" off of words where it ends, and replace it with an "A" (like "car" = "cah") and put it where it doesn't belong, usually where a word ends in "A" ("soda" = "soder"). So it doesn't sound too condesending to people that are familiar with me

For some reason I find the notion of having an "advanced" vocabulary amusing. I will now go about considering the alternative "basic" vocabulary used by "normal" people.

I don't know about "advanced", but my vocabulary is most definitely larger than average in my experience; I am both hyperverbose and inclined to favour longer words and complex grammatical constructs. I’m particularly fond of archaic words and constructs. I also do not hesitate to make words up whenever I need them, and actually enjoy doing so. The "why" behind this is a mystery to me; I do not do so through any conscious effort to be a certain way; I speak and write the way I speak and write.

I'm not sure that any specific usage of vocabulary has been misinterpreted as being aimed at offending, but I have been victim of the more general problem mistaking me for being pretentious and/or condescending when neither effect was intended. This has been a consistent enough problem that I blurb about it on my MySpace page:

Sorry guys, my vocabulary is too advanced for my brain to compute any of your primitive messages.

I think mine is sometimes more vague than advanced, which is why people don't really understad close to exactly what I want to say.

I am constantly being asked "What?". I have gotten used to being a thesaurus after years of talking to people. If I am talking to a group and I see a confused look, I know I did it again. I say "this means that" and see the faces relax. Then, I continue talking.

I'd say Icarus's post sums up myself pretty closely, though he may have a bigger vocabulary than I do. I also am a horrible speller and I'm pretty sure that I would live in endless frustration if I didn't have spell check.



As an example of a miscommunication, I used to use the word loathe a lot when I was younger. I stopped using it because I got sick of having conversations like this.

Them: What kind of food do you like?

Me: I don't really have a favorite, I enjoy different foods for different reasons, but I loathe seafood.

Them: Oh I love seafood too. Have you had King Crab?

Me: No no, I said I loathe sea food, not love.

Them: Huh? What does Loathe mean?

Me: It means having extreme hatred for.

Them: oh. . . well see ya later.