Strange or non-standard use of language in ASD

[Lundi]

I was told quite often whilst attending meetups that my use of language is odd or "off" compared to a normal person. In worst-case scenarios people just call me "autistic" like an insult.

But it is because I refuse to use contractions and other things when speaking English. I also use strange grammar in other languages, such as when I insist to use the archaic future subjunctive in Spanish ("cuando vinieres" instead of "cuando vengas") or using the hyphenated multiple pronoun structure in Portuguese when talking ("dir-lho-ei" instead of the simplified spoken "lhe direi"). I also sometimes use cases when speaking Dutch.

Is it true that these language quirks, such as my refusing to use contractions or my usage of "thou" and Germanic grammar and vocabulary of older English ("I am come home" instead of "I have come home" or "I have to go to the sickhouse" instead of "I have to go to the hospital") makes people find me weird and suspect that I have ASD?

 

[onlything]

Maybe not suspect ASD from the beginning but you're probably seen as weird or quirky due to that, maybe even at times rude (since some ways of speaking can be seen as arrogant or pompous by others). You're not using forms that are generally accepted in society, so it's only logical.

There are rules around the language that are expected to be followed. If you're meeting friends in an informal setting in a pub and start speaking formally like in a meeting with a client, that's considered weird and possibly even offputting, similarly if you come to, for example, a Hawaiian style party in a suit - you start the conversation by distancing yourself and depending on a country even putting yourself above the other person. If you use informal language in a formal setting, that's considered rude or unprofessional, just as wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt to an interview would be seen as wrong.

Also, at times, if people don't know of or think of learning words you use, you just won't be understood.

 

[the_tortoise]

Is it true that these language quirks, such as my refusing to use contractions or my usage of "thou" and Germanic grammar and vocabulary of older English ("I am come home" instead of "I have come home" or "I have to go to the sickhouse" instead of "I have to go to the hospital") makes people find me weird and suspect that I have ASD?

Probably, yes, they think you are weird or cognitively different in some way.

People make a lot of (sometimes mind-boggling) assumptions about others based solely on language use.

 

[Lundi]

Probably, yes, they think you are weird or cognitively different in some way.

People make a lot of (sometimes mind-boggling) assumptions about others based solely on language use.

I actually do have Asperger's, but I never knew that people got suspicious just because of the way I talked. I have not used a contraction in English since I was a teenager (over a decade) unless I am directly quoting someone and have to use one. For some reason, using contractions gives me a bad feeling, like when you drink spoilt milk (not exactly, but something like that)

 

[SolarPoweredNightOwl]

I was told quite often whilst attending meetups that my use of language is odd or "off" compared to a normal person. In worst-case scenarios people just call me "autistic" like an insult.

But it is because I refuse to use contractions and other things when speaking English. I also use strange grammar in other languages, such as when I insist to use the archaic future subjunctive in Spanish ("cuando vinieres" instead of "cuando vengas") or using the hyphenated multiple pronoun structure in Portuguese when talking ("dir-lho-ei" instead of the simplified spoken "lhe direi"). I also sometimes use cases when speaking Dutch.

Is it true that these language quirks, such as my refusing to use contractions or my usage of "thou" and Germanic grammar and vocabulary of older English ("I am come home" instead of "I have come home" or "I have to go to the sickhouse" instead of "I have to go to the hospital") makes people find me weird and suspect that I have ASD?

The whole point of language is communication, and how you say something is as important as what you say (often more important, dealing with NTs). And yes, you will be judged based on how you communicate, as it's a clue to intelligence, and indicative of how easily someone can work with you. Don't get me wrong--I don't think a guy who can speak four languages, and has deep technical and historical knowledge of them, has anything wrong with his intellect. But if I ran into someone who deliberately made their speech harder to understand (which is what you're effectively doing), given that I have a hard time processing speech to begin with, I wouldn't want to deal with that person. (The contraction thing is harmless, but re-arranging word order and using different vocabulary and pronunciation would make it pretty hard for me.)

I don't mean any offense. I think your ability with languages is actually really impressive. But you're basically asking: "I go out of my way to speak atypically, will this get me pegged as atypical?"

 

[grommet]

I was told quite often whilst attending meetups that my use of language is odd or "off" compared to a normal person. In worst-case scenarios people just call me "autistic" like an insult.

But it is because I refuse to use contractions and other things when speaking English. I also use strange grammar in other languages, such as when I insist to use the archaic future subjunctive in Spanish ("cuando vinieres" instead of "cuando vengas") or using the hyphenated multiple pronoun structure in Portuguese when talking ("dir-lho-ei" instead of the simplified spoken "lhe direi"). I also sometimes use cases when speaking Dutch.

Is it true that these language quirks, such as my refusing to use contractions or my usage of "thou" and Germanic grammar and vocabulary of older English ("I am come home" instead of "I have come home" or "I have to go to the sickhouse" instead of "I have to go to the hospital") makes people find me weird and suspect that I have ASD?

When I am really being myself, I do not use contractions. It is not my nature. Also, I speak pedantically and tend to use formal and older forms of speech in English. As I kid I started to hide it, I listened to the other kids and tried to mimic them. I lost a lot of myself when I did this but it was the only way to get by. It is only occasionally that I let myself speak naturally in public but I notice when I do. I wonder what other people think when I speak that way but I think I must have seemed odd to other people my whole life.

 

[Mia]

Interesting, I do use older forms of speech from a long time ago. Often I catch myself and remove a word or two, mainly because I learned/taught myself to read from older english books before I went to school. When I attended english school, I often ignored the use of popular terms. It's probably why I found reading Shakespeare not at all difficult.

It's similar when I speak French, I find myself using older language, more formal, as my mother taught me the language her Mother taught her from another era. Often, have people I know who have mentioned that I need not be so formal when I speak. It may have something to do with the way we learned the languages. And languages evolve over time.

Have a friend who spoke Sicilian growing up, it was the language spoken in the home. When he went on a trip to Sicily he discovered that his sicilian was slightly archaic. Sicilians in his age group could barely understand him, but his elderly relatives understood most of what he said. Languages evolve in the countries that they are native to, but often they don't evolve in the countries people move to, as my grandparents did. The language remains the same for them as the one they learned as children.

 

[Misery]

I do this alot. Which is likely rather obvious to anyone that's seen some of the posts I do on here. As a rule, I refuse to stop doing it.

Some of my speech patterns could certainly be seen as archaic by some. I read ALOT of books and have been doing so since I was a kid... that's where part of it comes from.

I'm also aware that my pronunciation IRL can sometimes be a bit off.

"What are you doing?" comes out as "What'aer ya doen?" for instance. No, I dont know why. Note that I live in the US and basically everyone around me speaks with a basic/typical American accent. So heck if I know where that came from.

But also, I switch vocal modes at random. If anyone knows what "Buffy-speak" is, I do that alot. Can be archaic, or it can be that.

Combine all that together, and.... yeah, it sounds a bit odd. One of the reasons why I dont talk much when I'm around people I dont really know.

 

[Lundi]

English is my native language, but I use formal language in every language that I speak. I feel rather uncomfortable using slang and excessively colloquial speech.

Several times people called me "Grandpa" as a sarcastic joke despite my just turning only 30, because they say I talk like an old man.

 

[Fino]

I don't know about autistic but the reason people find it odd is because it is odd. You're purposely differing from everyone else. That's the definition of "weird".

 

[Misery]

I don't know about autistic but the reason people find it odd is because it is odd. You're purposely differing from everyone else. That's the definition of "weird".

Hm, it probably depends on the individual.

I know I dont do it on purpose. It's the other way around: Trying to speak "normal" is always a frustrating effort. I only do it if the situation absolutely requires it for whatever stupid reason.

Some though will indeed do it out of simple preference.

I figure... it's at least interesting.

 

[Fino]

Hm, it probably depends on the individual.

I know I dont do it on purpose. It's the other way around: Trying to speak "normal" is always a frustrating effort. I only do it if the situation absolutely requires it for whatever stupid reason.

Some though will indeed do it out of simple preference.

I figure... it's at least interesting.

I'm not sure about you, and I don't speak normally according to people, but I don't do anything approaching, "usage of "thou" and Germanic grammar and vocabulary of older English". Are you referring to that as well in your statements? Because most of what other people said I wouldn't say is objectively "weird".

 

[Misery]

I'm not sure about you, and I don't speak normally according to people, but I don't do anything approaching, "usage of "thou" and Germanic grammar and vocabulary of older English". Are you referring to that as well in your statements? Because most of what other people said I wouldn't say is objectively "weird".

I am, actually.

Someone's speech patterns can be quite the complicated thing. Either simple or complex, it can become habit. It can START OUT intentional, but it can also start out unintentional. If someone is doing alot of stuff with language... learning new ones, studying them, that sort of thing, or maybe even just has a special interest or obsession about it... it seems quite likely that this is going to distort that person's own speech patterns in their original language. Even without them realizing it's happening.

I have no idea if the OP does all the stuff mentioned on purpose or not. But in a general sense, even if it's both weird AND complex, it could be something simply picked up over time rather than done on purpose.

 

[Streetwise]

I actually do have Asperger's, but I never knew that people got suspicious just because of the way I talked. I have not used a contraction in English since I was a teenager (over a decade) unless I am directly quoting someone and have to use one. For some reason, using contractions gives me a bad feeling, like when you drink spoilt milk (not exactly, but something like that)

You’re different the way I’m different, when you have that kind of difference you are not liked ,not being liked is not a nice feeling ,I use contractions but it’s obvious because of my beliefs not my use of language that I am not liked,You have to fight for your very life for what you think is right people might say they believe in democracy but they still fight there’s proof of that every day, Murders ,attacks on people, theft,Just by being a child you can be really !disliked .This is from memory !not understanding !,some people speak like you !but they are what !people call !confident !in !it! ,people like confidence,If you want to kill a part of yourself so you won’t to be verbally attacked do it,I spent 30 years doing that I don’t feel good now that its stopped, I should’ve kept being me from the start, One thing I understand from a cerebral stroke is !when the speech centre is damaged the stroke victim adapts by choosing the word closest ,for example flowers become pretties.
Because you’re autistic ,your speech centre I presume it’s slightly more like a stroke victim ,so you don’t perceive trading English in the way somebody does who is neuro typical.

 

[Lundi]

I believe that I used contractions until around age 18 or 19. I remember not really liking to use them, but used them fairly regularly because I heard others doing it and felt that I had to copy. When I was 19 close to 20, I gradually phased out contractions from my speech and writing.

I believe that it was when I started learning Dutch in 2013 when I started dropping Germanic words into my English. I felt that Dutch was more logical than English in many ways, and started to bring in Dutch grammatical constructions as well into English.

Right now, if I forced myself to speak pure colloquial English, I would feel strange. Even writing a contraction makes me feel bad. Not that it matters, since it is hard to type contractions. My keyboard is on Spanish format, and if I type an apostrophe after a consonant, nothing happens; if I type an apostrophe after a vowel, it produces an acute accent, e.g. "a + apostrophe" = á.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

To some extent I can identify with this. My use of English has often been wilfully archaic. Perhaps it did not help that many of the children's books I read and enjoyed, when I first started reading, were old classics such as "The Secret Garden". My essays at school, in my teens, were about 100 years out of date. I have to make a conscious effort to tone down this tendency; I remind myself the actual purpose of language is communication, so I try to "learn" colloquial as though it were a dialect, in order to be able to communicate more effectively with those who do not happen to speak and write like Wilkins Micawber.

I seem to recall the specialist A.S.D. team who diagnosed my Asperger's identified "formal language use" (or some such) as among the indications of the disorder.

Possibly another instance of how those of us on the Spectrum tend to start with a blank piece of paper and determine our own rules for what is acceptable and what ought to be normal, rather than automatically absorbing everyone else's rules for normality and acceptability?

 

[WildCat]

I cater to whatever audience is around and try to adapt accordingly. Emphasis on the try part, because unfortunately I and many others aren't 100% perfect. Asking for clarification helps, but that still only goes so far if everyone's not roughly on the same page. That's been my experience anyways.

If someone's talking in a overly pedantic, vocabulary loaded manner like I see very often here and cannot or will not adjust their language, it's easy to see how that only complicates things. The intense and emotionally supercharged stuff runs a risk of backfiring and also complicates things.

 

[Streetwise]

I cater to whatever audience is around and try to adapt accordingly. Emphasis on the try part, because unfortunately I and many others aren't 100% perfect. Asking for clarification helps, but that still only goes so far if everyone's not roughly on the same page. That's been my experience anyways.

If someone's talking in a overly pedantic, vocabulary loaded manner like I see very often here and cannot or will not adjust their language, it's easy to see how that only complicates things. The intense and emotionally supercharged stuff runs a risk of backfiring and also complicates things.

I don’t think it’s pedantic I think it’s just different apparently you’re not allowed to be different.

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

Sure people will find it weird, because as Fino said, it is objectively weird. Whether people will jump from weird to ASD though I'm not sure, possibly. Personally I would probably just think that English wasn't your first language, or that you were a history nut and/or extremely pretentious.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

I don’t think it’s pedantic, I think it’s just different : apparently you’re not allowed to be different.

Neurotypicals have inherited a deep and ancient aversion to difference: it seems to be an inbuilt atavistic response, in them. Hence racism.

Neurotypicals can be allergic to different.

And I have a pet theory having Asperger's is almost like coming from a racial or religious minority: we just have to accept that we will face bias and we will face discrimination and we will face hostility, and this is not a situation that can be turned around fast, so although of course we must not tolerate it as correct, we would be deluded were we to deny it is the case.