Idioms

I love idioms. The first time I hear them, I do hear them literally. 'To bend over backwards' does conjuger an immediate image of a person contorting themselves. But then the challenge is to work out what it means. Generally metaphore is involved. I puzzle it out. If I can't, well I ask. Once learned, I understand and redeploy with glee. It's no different to learning a new single item of vocab.

Yeah, we do take stuff literally. But this causes me most problems when people say stuff they only meant loosely.  That can cause some anxiety. For example a person promises to call "in the afternoon" but then actually calls at 11 am (morning) or at 6 pm ( ahem, evening).

Often times stuff said as a joke by passes me because I took it literally, or I recognised that it wasn't meant literally but couldn't figure out what was meant. Bless him, my old boss fell foul of that often and we had a giggle later when we realised we were speaking two different languages: one literal, one playful and I got totally the wrong end of the stick (Hello, another idiom). He knows I'm autistic and will admonish himself with a laugh:"Oh God, should know better that to do that with you". Lol

But, I am a linguist too and adore the way other cultures conceptualize ideas differently and love learning their idioms like other vocab items. For instance, when something happens rarely in English we say:"once in a blue moon". There is such a thing as a blue moon, but it's rare. In French you'd say: "tous les trente-six du mois" (every thirty sixth of the month), which of course never occurs. What a lovely idea! Or when it's raining hard we say: "it's raining cats and dogs", apparently because rain would make cats and dogs prowling the rafters of your thatch fall down. In French: "il pleure comme vaches qui pissent" (it's raining like pissing cows). How funny! There is an image in my head of flying cows emptying their bladders. Got to love it. Lol

I especially love idioms which have a grain of truth behind them. Also for rare happenings in English: "as rare as hen's teeth", but apparently as birds are descendants of dinosaurs, they do have the genes to produce teeth and a very rare individual chicken does. Oh boy!

Hello 

‘When an article says that people with ASD struggle with idioms, what does this mean exactly? (the struggle, I know what an idiom is)’

We autistic people have a different communication style, that is usually literal, specific and honest. So this can mean for some of us (including myself at times) that idioms make no sense and it would just be much more logical to say what you mean.  This is because of the way we often interpret language literally.

It’s perfectly ok to not relate to one common aspect of autistic experience. The example you give about idioms is just an observation.

For example, I understand some idioms and not others but generally I don’t see the point in using them. I would rather people be more explicit in their communication to avoid confusion. However I do understand why people use them if they want to hint at/avoid an emotional or controversial topic. 

Yes we can learn the meaning of idioms (or alternatively like I do, interpret them very literally and make people laugh).

I dont mean to say that autistic are like foreigners.

What I really mean to say is that anybody can struggle with idioms if they have not been exposed to them. UK culture is extraordinarily varied so I can imagine idiom struggles between different regions.

I've known Americans not understand British idioms as well.

Cultural References as part of speech would fall under the same problem.

"Just click your heels together three times"

Yes, you could say autistic are like foreigners, unfamiliar with a local culture and peculiarities of a local version of a language spoken, but after explained what it means it stays that way, next time autistic will understand it, I'm not entirely sure about foreigners, as I know many stuck behind language barrier, I count figure out what holds them there

The only manifestation of problems between idioms and autistics I can foresee would be the lack of questioning the idioms.

I've just spent the last decade in an environment where there is a very high competency for English as a foreign language. So I've been talking with very intelligent professionals in English and I'm used to people not understanding a turn of phrase that I might use.

Idioms are built on both language and culture. They are also probably generational as well.

The knowledge space for autism is ever changing, the problem is the people, people are slow to change. The same tired clichés and stereotypes will take a great many more years to dislodge.

I think that the vast majority of autists, if they are told what an idiom means, they will remember it. They might not use idiomatic phrases in their everyday speech, but if someone else uses one they are familiar with, they will recognise its meaning. We tend to be a bit literal in speech, but we do not have problems with remembering things.

My problem with idioms is that the meaning has no connection to the actual words being used.  To some people they are in common use and they expect others to just know them.  I don't!  I need to look up the meaning in a book or the internet.  And there are just so many.

Since I am a social recluse who doesn't mix and talk to many people, I just don't understand the idioms.

A recent example is being called 'A cat's mother.'

The thing with idioms is: there is a lot of them in every language, with similar meaning, but using different words

they love to attribute anything and eveyrthing bad to being autistic, except helping us,

so of course there will be autistic that don't grasp hidden meanings, nuances, don't know many idioms,

the same as allistic

except we have better memory and when asked we confirm, while they forget and when asked they deny

and  I'm sure every person on a planet had a situation, when they did not catch the nuance and they were enlightened later

autistic not-understanding in these cases is based on not knowing the person's preferences, so from our point of view there is to many possibilities