Aspies For Freedom

I remember for a while, I heard lots of media people in Australia referring to things said by "Natasha's doctor, Spoya". I was quite confused about who Natasha was, why the things said by Spoya were so important, and why it was relevant that Spoya was Natasha's doctor...

Then I found out that the person they were quoting was the new Democrats leader, Natasha Stott-Despoja.... *grins*

This is totally off your actually topic, 'ponine, but where in Kansas?

Years ago I lived nad/or worked in Topeka, Wichita, Larned, Great Bend, Rozel, Burdette, Kinsley, Greenburg (destroyed by tornadoes TWICE) Hutchinson, Derby, Mulvane (also destroyed by tornadoes TWICE) and Halstead. Did my first masters degree at KSU in Manhattan -- hit by a tornado yesterday.

...and first saw Les Miz on Broadway 20 years ago.

Wow. Small world...  I lived on East Idlewild, just off South Hydraulic.

In terms of misunderstood terms, when I was little we were driving across country and staying at a motel. In the middle of the night my mother woke us up and said "get in the car -- there's a blizzard coming! We have to get out of here before the blizzard gets here!"

As we drove out of town, I was looking out the back window of the car, expecting to see some huge, terrifying monster like Godzilla... I still remember what i thought it would look like...

Blizzard... big lizard.... kids have the most wonderful minds.  

This isn't a misunerstood word but, worse still, a whole screwed-up university essay:  my first Literature essay topic was along the lines of "Bliss shows the average family unit's deterioration into alcoholism, sex, incest, violence and death.  Discuss."  Instead of addressing the general concept of the disintegration of this whacko family I instead went through item by item - alcoholism, sex, violence - picking out instances.

I missed the point entirely.  Yet because I can string words together pleasingly, I got an HD for the *** thing.

An English professor once busted me on an essay test:

"This is a brilliant answer to a question no one asked."

auditory processing problem?  There are different elements to it for me.  One of them is not hearing some words correctly and the meaning just is either very silly to me or totally changed.

I was out shopping one day and got arrested for indecent exposure. Totally misunderstood the term Strip Mall.

My boyfriend does this all the time- switches words in his head that sound similar.  For example, he might say "felicity" instead of "facility" or say "smell" instead of "sound".  He also switches words that are very different sounding but have closely related meanings.

I used to misunderstand things like that when I was younger... not much anymore.  I never did understand, though, what I should say to my mother when she asked me if I wanted my apple peeled.  I thought "peeled" meant it would have the peel on it; "unpeeled" obviously meant "without the peel".  Well, "peel" is also a verb, so I was wrong- I had it backwards.  I never did wrap my mind around this completely, so I still mess it up sometimes.

Seriously though I do mix up words in my head.  I may try to say, " I went to the store today." But I can tell "school" not "store" wants to come out of my mouth  so I stop talking to give myself the chance to say the word I want. I guess it's stammering.

I also hear things wrong. I call it trainwreck.  It's when someone says something and the words sound like onebiglongword.

My husband used to think I was ignoring him or did not hear him when he would say something and I did not respond quickly. He knows better now.

He also learned not to give me too much information all at once. Like "Honey I'm going to get the grill  ready and grill the steaks. You get the potatoes cleaned and in the oven, start the rice and we'll make salad together." Yikes!

My brother, sister and I were watching Cars, the first time for me, and I asked what the name of the red car was.
This is what I heard:

Sister:Lightning and Queen
Me:Ok, who's Queen?
Sister:No, Lightning and Queen
Me:So, his name is Lightning, then who is Queen?

After about 5 times of her repeating the name, my younger brother, who has the toy car, played it, and finally, I heard it correctly, which was Lightning McQueen.
We all laughed at that.

I also hear many phrases, and words just as sounds, different pitches,or I will hear the first two words of a phrase, and the rest will be lost on me, and I constantly have to ask others to repeat themselves.

It's like all those movies featuring you and McGregor... *grins*

Ha - my academic career in a nutshell!  Fortunately (???) I was doing an unpopular course (literature) at a manky regional university where they were probably so stoked to have a student who could put together five thousand articulate, fully-referenced words that they didn't seem to mind how many light-years they deviated from the actual question.  I still doubt I could write an actual essay if I had to!

Speaking of peeled/unpeeled... flammable/inflammable.  I still don't get them.

Anyone daft enough to use a word like "irregardless" in a conversation shouldn't expect to be understood!  (and Firefox's spell-checker refuses to acknowledge it's existence...although I know I've seen it around, particularly in a very very thick textbook where it didn't matter that I didn't know what it meant because I didn't know what any of the other words meant either.)

  Story of my life!  It gets really embarrassing when you have to ask someone to repeat something 5 or 6 times just to figure out what they're saying.  You can see them growing more and more impatient and annoyed each time and eventually they just yell in your ear or say, "Forget it, it's not important."
I like to say, "sorry, could you rephrase that?" some of the time, because sometimes it's easier to interpret if it's a different sentence.  Also, getting them to speak a little more slowly and loudly helps.
I have a friend who slurrs his speech a lot; especially at the end of his sentences.  It's like it starts out as a coherent sentence and then turns into mush:  "We're going to go to the shinimaneyenndeneetpishaieai. Wanna come?"  It's especially hard to figure it out over the phone, since the phone garbbles everything he says even more.  I end up going, "uh huh, uh huh" most of time he talks without understanding a word of it.
I also have a friend whose voice gets quieter and lower as he reaches the end of his sentence, until you can barely hear it.  All of my friends have to ask him to repeat himself all the time.  

I have that problem, too.    My parents used to understand it when I was a kid, and they'd make sure to tell me one thing at a time.  If they forgot, I'd remind them:  "One thing at a time, Mom, I can't remember all that!"  But they seem to have forgotten this thing about me.  Now they tell me first thing in the morning everything I have to do, and I have to remember it.  Also, they add things all the time and don't tell me whether they need to be done now or later.  It's terribly confusing.  
Thankfully lists help, but I can't always remember everything I need to put on the list!