Analogies and metaphors and autism - you?

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Brittany2907
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08 Jan 2008, 5:05 pm

I don't really use metaphors or analogies often. I do understand some metaphors, but have trouble with complex ones. I do understand analogies.
I prefer not to use them, though.


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WurdBendur
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08 Jan 2008, 5:12 pm

I have no problem understanding metaphors, though I get annoyed when people carry them too far. I mean, an internet is only a tube until you consider how the trucks drive through it.

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mom2bax
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09 Jan 2008, 2:50 am

kind of on topic, but this post made me think of this, my friend ahd it posted on her profile so i had to share the link, it will help to explain analogies and make you laugh> 2 in 1 awesome!

http://www.jimgeary.com/faves/joxe/JOXETC02.HTM



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09 Jan 2008, 3:29 am

I don't think I have much of a problem with metaphors, or analogies. What do get me are proverbs and idioms.

"The grass is greener on the other side"

"Cannot see the forest for the trees"

The first one just conjured pictures of a greener grass and a remembrance of needing to mow my lawn. The second one drove me nuts for years until it was explained, but backwards. "You are so interested in the trees that you forget there's a forest surrounding you."


Oddly enough, I have no problem creating proverbs, idioms, maxims, etc. Neither do I have much of a hard time understanding religious poetry which is filled with metaphors, idioms, similes, analogies, allegories, etc. I guess because you somewhat understand the context the writer is coming from.


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09 Jan 2008, 4:57 am

Understanding metaphors? It depends. Once I recognise one as a metaphor (either by being told or it's flagrant) I do. But fresh ones do go over my head sometimes and it can be embarrassing.

Analogies? You bet! I rely on them! "Examples of" if you like - and that doesn't always get respected especially when I name drop - quite innocently I should add because I see that person as a prime example of my analogy. But on other occasions the analogies prove to be immeasurably useful in people understanding Aspergers when they need to - and because I'm an Aspie I know from a general stand point where people like us come from.



Ana54
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09 Jan 2008, 5:03 am

I've never really had problems with analogies or metaphors... I do use them and make analogical/metaphorical jokes...



WurdBendur
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09 Jan 2008, 5:21 am

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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Tempy
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09 Jan 2008, 6:04 am

im a writer and i think im ok understranding metaphors, though im beter with symbolism and I prefer to think of it in terms of "simpathetic" corelation betweeen stuff.



Panzyo
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09 Jan 2008, 6:20 am

I'm pretty good with both and I was pretty upset that the year before I took the SAT was the last year it had analogies.



ixochiyo_yohuallan
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09 Jan 2008, 7:46 am

I think in both for the most part, so I usually have no trouble with them. My visual thinking is random, almost chaotic, which means that associations may form freely between seemingly unrelated things (which is the essence of metaphor).

When I think without words or imagery, I tend to experience only emotions and intuitive sensations I have difficulty defining. If I wanted to describe these gut feelings in words, metaphor would be, again, the closest way to do this; it also has this quality of going directly to the core of things, and expressing what could not be described in a literal, straightforward manner.

Some time ago there was a topic about this:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt25824.html

When I don‘t understand a metaphor created by someone else, it‘s mostly because metaphor is highly idiosyncratic by its very nature. Where another person may easily come up with a comparison, I may not, and vice versa. I guess this is quite normal.



Last edited by ixochiyo_yohuallan on 09 Jan 2008, 8:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

SirLogiC
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09 Jan 2008, 7:48 am

mom2bax wrote:
kind of on topic, but this post made me think of this, my friend ahd it posted on her profile so i had to share the link, it will help to explain analogies and make you laugh> 2 in 1 awesome!

http://www.jimgeary.com/faves/joxe/JOXETC02.HTM



haha those are great, just like chocolate cake! I love chocolate cake.



PS. gee I crack myself up sometimes, Im so bad



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09 Jan 2008, 8:43 am

I love both. I often use them, analogies especially, to compensate for my difficulty in translating ideas into a verbal form.


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09 Jan 2008, 9:01 am

I'm very good with both, especially analogies. I was mad when I had to take the new SAT, which didn't have them...


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09 Jan 2008, 5:10 pm

I'm very strong in things that have to do with symbolic play.
I don't normally find people able to explore words and metaphors like this - so I think I'm a bit of a freak in this sense.
In fact, when writing poetry myself, I've been accused of "being cryptic".
When posting I generally feel I need to restrain myself from going too far and provoking forum idiots into deraling everything - especially in my first language.
I didn't notice this until high school when I was forced to do thorough analyses in literature class; before that I used to think the whole matter was a task way too ambiguous.
I ended up getting the maximun grade for literature (in my mother tongue) for the IB diploma.

While these things come without effort; I was always barely ok-ish in mathematics and I rarely enjoyed it's study. Later on, I ended up dropping out of an engineering career because I couldn't stand the sheer amount of mathematics I was meant to go over everyday (and the grating fact that I didn't blend in at all).

. . .so the thing that irks me about all this is the stereotype of the aspie as an engineer and the subtle tendency - in some texts going round - to portray the NT person's sociability as proof of creativity, flexibility, qualitative insight, etc. . .
I see most NTs - especially in my environment - as sorely lacking any of that; it just happens that so called NTs conform a majority that communicate in their own established way which, really, is not necessarily better.



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09 Jan 2008, 5:20 pm

duncansbass wrote:
Reodor_Felgen wrote:
I like using both, but NTs don't seem to understand them if they get to complicated.


Hear, hear!


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