Idioms and metaphors

Just thought this could make a fun topic...

I'm terrible for taking people literally, I would say my most common response to conversations between people at work is "are you being serious?" the other day my mum had a right laugh when we were chatting about me putting money into an account for my dad because I'm living at his house and he needed to use it on his car repair bill so she said well at least he had it there for a rainy day and now it's definitely raining. I looked outside and said but it's not raining, it's sunny out she meant metaphorically and then I realised after all these year that a "rainy day fund" meant for when things were bad. I never realised that. I remember when I first heard the term and I was little and I remember being bored whenever it was raining so pictured it as saving up to do something fun when's it's raining and your bored, as I got older it never occurred to me to think about it's meaning or to question that explanation... Until now, my mum thought it was funny at least.

I guess there must be plenty of funny stories out there where idioms and metaphors just haven't worked. 

  • read. i hate reading. i have trouble with vocabulary and idioms too=/

  • I don't get sarcasm at all some times I just think people are being horrible I also don't get sayings for things once I found myself searching for elbow greathirty teen minutes because someone said to me put some elbow grease into and stared at a door so confused looking for a jar when someone said leave the door ajar . I thought it head just me :/ 

  • some good examples, I never hand any such trouble with metaphors but I do have trouble with other aspects of language such as when people say

    do you know what I mean/I'm saying

    literally

    saying the word 'man' all the time

    init

    actually

    the truth is...

    honestly...

    worst thing is when I find myself saying them.

  • One of our big phrases is 'bumping in to'. Our 4 yr old son is always fascinated/worried about people hurting themselves and bumping heads and you would be amazed how often an adult friend says "oh do you know, the other day I bumped into so and so..." and then we have to explain that they didn't actually bump and no they didn't hurt themselves....so confusing! 

  • My son has a habit of taking things literally. One time when I was having a meeting with his head teacher he was asked to join us. When he entered the room the head teacher said to him 'your ears must be burning as we've been talking about you'. My son looked totally bemused and his hand instantly went to his ear to see if it was actually on fire. Some figures of speech are quite odd really when you think about the literal meaning. 

  • Funnily enough I used to take the 'rainy day' thing literally as well!

    Once at my voluntary job with Age UK, I was told by a customer to take the stuffing out of the bag (the one she was buying). I proceeded to remove all the little plastic bags contained within the big plastic bags that are kept beneath the till to put bought goods in.