Sifr wrote:
I don't think I have much of a problem with metaphors, or analogies. What do get me are proverbs and idioms.
Yes, I think you pretty much just hit the nail on the head right there. It's weird idiomatic expressions that don't make any sense when taken literally.
I remember not understanding the meaning of "splitting hairs" until a friend brought it up. I mentioned that I had never endeavored to split hairs, and he insisted that I had. When I denied this, he told me, "You're splitting hairs right now." And that's how I figured out what it meant. The thought that it was a purely idiomatic expression hadn't occurred to me. I was just reminded of images from cartoons I used to watch in which some antagonist would pluck a hair and literally split it on his extremely sharp blade. It was just a demonstration of how sharp his blade was, until I figured out that it was a visual pun.
Sifr wrote:
"Cannot see the forest for the trees"
Ironically, this might be a perfect explanation of how many people experience ASD.
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"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." - Isaac Asimov