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Sayings

Expecto_Patronum

Anyone else get fixated on the meanings of sayings? I think I know what all the most common ones mean now but new ones really confuse me. 

I will use some of the most common ones if they make logical sense to me. Like I can understand a saying like that's the pot calling the kettle black because, although it's a bit outdated now, I know that once pots were black and kettles were not. 

But some even when I know what they mean I either think they're stupid or get sucked into well how and why. So I understand the saying you can't have you're cake and eat it too but this one seems a bit stupid to me because I can quite easily eat some of my cake and keep the rest and I then indeed have eaten my cake and still have it. But sayings like the bees knees. Ok I know what it means but why? How does that make sense. Why is something really good being compared to a tiny little knee? What is so great about an insects knees? How does that remotely make sense? And how does something that makes so little sense catch on as a saying that many people use (or at least used to).

Parents

  • I understand the tricky thing about literal thinking and sayings being tricky to make sense of until explained - I was told to "follow that lorry"  when learning to drive with my boss - I did and ended up with the wing mirror of the vehicle I was driving getting knocked off as I did so without stopping to let another lorry come around the corner with enough space!  I suspect that the joke about confusing someone by putting 3 spades against a wall and asking the person to take their pick might be an interesting thing to consider?  best wishes

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  • in reply to Expecto_Patronum

    Until explained yes - it may be that the explanation can be provided by others or by deducing it oneself.  In order to deduce it oneself this requires the meaning of the words to be included in one's vocabulary.  Then making the connection to a meaning of the saying which often addresses a common issue of life.

    In this situation we may be exploring that for autistic people there exists a relative tendency to interpret words, phrases, and concepts in their most straightforward, non-figurative sense.  It may be that this tendency makes autistic people more likely to find sayings the subject of fixation.

    To directly answer your first question in your post.  Yes I recall becoming especially interested in sayings in my early twenties.  As a source of wisdom they are a useful resource.  In my early twenties especially, I was pretty desperate for sources of wisdom - perhaps to help me navigate the neurotypical world as an undiagnosed autistic person.  Perhaps just because I found it interesting that it is possible to encapsulate common human situations in such a practical, memorable and widely shared way.  I think that because it requires a little extra effort to understand them it makes them more memorable and exchangeable.  Perhaps also because they are less direct they are less "blunt" and therefore more easily exchanged between two people too.  They are passed on as a shared social wisdom rather than a direct individual statement which may seem too personal for some situations of communication.

    Anyway, if I may, I would like to say: "more power to your elbow" to you   by which I mean to say: I approve of your efforts and hope they will be successful.

    :-)

  • in reply to Expecto_Patronum

     a pick as well as a being a choice is also a type of implement ( a pick axe) for digging with - albeit a pick is used to break up material more than cut and lift it like a spade is - so the confusion is about there being 3 spades and no pick to pick as it were :-)