If I understand revel's comments correctly, Sally, what bothers him is not that his friend makes interpretations from "reading between the lines" of his speech patterns, but rather that she vocalizes her interpretations, a la psycho babble. So, if he says, "Help yourself to some of that there meatloaf", she will say, "Hmmmm, I wonder if you're having Oedipal feelings that you're projecting onto the meatloaf." It would be enough to annoy anybody, I should think.Sally wrote:Annoying as your friend may have been, revel, I think that I have done the same thing many times and I can't help but infer from the words how the speaker is feeling about the meatloaf or the people in the photo. Of course, we could pick up clues from the body language as well. It is a survival technique that is very important and perhaps is more a feminine method of coping with society.
As you suggest, we all do infer all kinds of things from what people say and how they say it. A slight pause here, an emphasis there, an unusual word choice or grammatical construction, a wink, a shrug, a screwing up of the mouth or wrinkling of the nose...all these things often add up to something in our minds as listeners or participants in an exchange. And Andy is reminding us that particular mannerisms are at least partly cultural. But providing running commentary on your thoughts would drive people nuts.
Larry Latham
I really can't remember how I managed to get where I wanted to go, to tell the truth, but I think somehow I did get there.