Every day, we perform so many tasks that we instantly forget about them. Meeting the deadline at work, picking kids up from school, reserving a dinner table, paying bills, doing this and that; no wonder our heads are spinning by the end of the week.
Whatever we do, even if we do so voluntarily, we have to follow some general rules, sometimes strict instructions or simply common sense to complete each task. But what happens when a person not just does what they’re supposed to do, but does so in such a literal way that it modifies the initial task altogether?
Call it a sense of humor, malicious compliance, a miscommunication, or a human error, but one thing is clear, every now and then, people take stuff at face value. Below Bored Panda wrapped up some of the funniest examples to remind everyone that we had better be clear than sorry. More literally completed jobs await in our previous post here.
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We Told Our 3-Year-Old That New Year Is Special Because You Get To Toast. Later, She Said: "Are We Gonna Make A Toast Now?" And Thus, A New Year's Day Tradition Was Born
This Is The Picture Amazon Sent My Bill To Say The Packages Were "Delivered To A Family Member Directly"
Someone At A Festival Offered Me A Little Bag Of Coke
Let’s make one thing clear – people are destined for miscommunication, for one reason or the other. Sometimes it happens by accident, other times it depends on the wrong assumption or interpretation, and other times we do it deliberately to prove a point. Call it an act of malicious compliance, a phenomenon well documented on various online platforms.
At the same time, if we want to make a real connection, miscommunication between us and the other person will break the deal. After all, social interaction follows us everywhere: at work, on a date, while out with friends, or having a coffee with your bff. So how could we possibly gain that confidence to express ourselves so that we are understood? Bruce Lambert, a professor, scientist, and consultant who has taught thousands of people all across the United States how to communicate more effectively, may have some answers.
My Grandma Wanted Some "Creative" Grad Photos Of My Friend Since We're Graduating At The Same Time. This Was Her Least Favorite
She’s A Genius
Always Asked For A Skateboard As A Kid. My Parents Said Not Until I'm 35. Today They Delivered
He looks so happy! Edit: ty for the upvotes, this is the most i've ever gotten!
First, we have to realize that being misunderstood is one of those common things that are virtually impossible to get rid of altogether. As long as we are a community, we will misunderstand each other. Nevertheless, it still puzzles us.
“People say they want to learn to express themselves more clearly so that they won't be misunderstood. When we are misunderstood, we think it is because we chose the wrong words. We didn't convey our ideas properly. Or we blame the other person. We expressed ourselves perfectly clearly, but they misinterpreted us. They got the wrong idea out of what we said,” Lambert explains on his website How Communication Works.
Experts Recommend Keeping Your Daily Rituals Even While Working From Home
Mom Told Her Daughter To Grab Her Mask So They Can Go To The Store. This Was The Mask She Grabbed
Hey, it covers her nose and mouth… which is more than I can say for most customers who roll through the store I work at…
My Buddy Was Told He Could Wear A Costume
But Lambert argues that it's not that simple. “It's not about putting our ideas into words and having other people decode our words and extract our ideas,” he writes. “It's about saying and doing things in the world so that other people, drawing on mutual knowledge about you, the context, language, and how the world works, can make accurate inferences about your beliefs, emotions, attitudes, plans, goals, and intentions.”
Found Some Amazing Indian Writing
My Dad Asked Me If I Wanted An Egg Sandwich. I'm Not Even Mad, This Is Genius
Told My Boyfriend I Was Getting Him A Burger For Christmas
According to him, when communication breaks down, it is a breakdown in this inferential problem-solving process, not a breakdown in encoding or decoding. “Avoiding misunderstanding means supporting this inferential process, or, when possible, minimizing the need for inference by being explicit,” he says.
They Asked For A Lion Cut, They Got It
There You Go
Fifty Shades Of Gray
So in order to avoid being misunderstood, Lambert’s advice is to ask yourself whether there is enough common ground to support accurate inference. “Accurate inference requires mutual knowledge, i.e., a set of facts that we share in common. We make assumptions about what other people know and what they know we know, and what they know we know they know, etc.”
What’s important to understand is that these assumptions are often wrong. “When the doctor tells the patient to put the patch on a different place every day, she assumes the patient knows to take yesterday's patch off. Dangerous assumption,” Lambert explained. To avoid misunderstanding, it’s always great to check your assumptions about mutual knowledge, and where it's lacking, do the work needed to fill in the gaps.
My Cousin Wanted Cake And Ordered One. Told The Bakers To Write Whatever They Wanted Because It Was For Just For Her Anyway
Can You Talk Real Quick?
Garlic Powder
Another tip from Lambert is to ask yourself if the person knows you well enough to realize when you're speaking literally or not. “Most of what we communicate, we communicate indirectly, by saying one thing and meaning much more,” he argues and adds that it’s efficient when people share enough knowledge and know each other well enough.
However, “When people do not know you well, they will be unsure when to take you literally and when to use inference to go beyond what you said to get at what you really meant. Avoid irony, sarcasm, and other forms of indirect, non-literal speech when speaking to people who may not know you well enough not to take you literally,” Lambert suggests.
Asked For My Cheese Steak To Be Made With Love. They Delivered
I Asked My 5-Year-Old To Keep An Eye On His Sister While I Served Him Dinner, I Peek Out Of The Kitchen And Find Him Like This. His Sister Is In Good Hands
All I can see is that playpen snapping and him falling on the little girl.
Not Gonna Lie, This Is A Little Too Accurate
They Got What They Asked For
Picked It, Thanks
They Asked Me To "Dress Like What You Want To Be When You Grow Up". So I Went With Retired On An Island
My Brother's Camp Requires The Kids Write A Letter Home After The First Week
What teenagers? This is camp--we had to do this from when we were little kids on up.
Load More Replies...Those stupid forced letters. My son (at 12 or so) had to write something sugar sweet for a family member and she also looked what they wrote. My brother is called Henk. So he wrote: Dear Henk, You're so sweet and so dear to me and some other real cute stuff. Because our rabbit was also called Henk. He just wrote the letter to the rabbit. What does the teacher know.
Do they not check the messages? When I called my mum on a trip the person listened to what I was saying and told me to only say the good things
That's unnerving. You should be able to say anything you want to your parents. What were they trying to hide?
Load More Replies...It’s not like they’re requiring the kids to do anything that’s a crime or anything that constitutes abuse or child slavery or child endangerment. It’s no worse than parents requiring a kid to do chores before video games, IMO. The camp is acting in loco parentis in this case. EDIT: just to be clear, I doubt the children are actually told that they will not be allowed to eat unless they write home. Having been a child once, this letter is sarcastic/slightly butthurt kid wit at its finest.
Load More Replies...Sure he will, all kids deserve to know that life is endless possibilities. Vic
I've come to the conviction that summer camps only serve to the purpose of parents believing that summer camps are great, or of parents wishing to get rid of their children for a bunch of days. Summer camps are mostly a PITA for the attendees, both subscribers and employees. Somewhere along the line, the concept got distorted. As a kid, I always wished to be sent to a summer camp, but I wasn't, and then I received nothing but ugly feedback from those who did, ranging from total boredom to sexual harassment, and everything that falls in between. The forced letters are a compulsory requirement intended to show that “we're having a great time”. Well shoot. In late junior high school, I started doing outdorsman things with my pals, and stopped wishing for summer camps. We turned out to be great campers, and hikers, hunters, fishermen (OK not too much cause fishing is an art), bushcrafters, ...
Some dads joined our group, initially on concerns of safety and security, later on on grounds of fun. But they figured out that, as young as we were, we could keep ourselves together. Yet they were very handy in order to teach us our way into gun habits, and in order to not mix guns and booze (cause for the time into senior high school booze was making its glorious entry). These dads were, I mean it, excellent instructors. They were there to know their own kids, to know who their friends were, they were there to teach and to learn. I miss those days :/
Load More Replies...My camp called it an ice cream letter. My first letter home was “I have to write this to get ice cream”
If I was even SENT to a camp, I would go on a hunger strike. That's the kind of kid I was. Very stubborn.
My Daughter When She Said She Wanted To Be A Transformer For Halloween
I Was So Busy In The Kitchen I Didn't Know What To Do First, My Little Brother Asked Me What He Can Do To Help. I Told Him To 'Get That Bag Of Potato, Peel Half Of Them And Boil'
My little brother is a true genius.
My Bro Told My Grandma, Jokingly, That He Wanted 100 Things From The Dollar Store For Christmas, Grandma Doesn't Like Being Challenged
Can't Blame The Answerer
My Buddy Jokingly Decided To Get A Henna Tattoo Of A Mustache While At The Beach. The Foreign Worker Didn't Understand What He Was Saying
So she asked him to write down what he wanted. This was the result
This Brazilian Girl Is A Big Fan Of K-Pop And All Korean Culture, So Her Father Without Understanding Much Wanted To Personalize Her Party
With the most famous Korean character he found
A First Grade Class Was Asked What They Would Say If The Pilgrims Showed Up At Their Door On Thanksgiving
My Wife Doesn’t Want Our Newborn Son’s Face Posted On Social Media, So She Asked Me To Censor It. Needless To Say, I Won’t Be Asked To Do That Again
Actual question, would like legit replies (I don’t have kids so I don’t understand this): Why do parents wish their newborn’s/baby’s face to be censored on social media? Privacy? The child/adult that the baby is going to grow into won’t resemble the baby’s face that much, so why hide the baby’s face? (If the parents don’t censor their faces, I don’t see what censoring the baby’s does in terms of privacy.) Is it a “baby can’t make their own decisions about whether or not they want their face posted online publicly” thing? I’m not trying to be an a*s, I’m truly curious as I’ve never understood this!
Looking For People With TV On Their Wall
We Are Now A Hands-Free State
This Guy
Why Indeed
He Is Simply Following Orders
My Wife Is A Teacher And Found This While Marking An Assessment
My Son Wanted "Cold Hard Cash" For His Birthday
Everytime Everywhere Follow The Signs
My Sister In Law Told My Brother “Use Those DIY Books And Fix The Chair!” Done
Our Wedding Shower During Quarantine. We Made The Best Of What We Had
Some Kids Take Things A Little Too Literally
How Do You Want Your Sandwich Cut She Said. I Don't Care I Said. Turns Out I Do, Mildly
Every Year I Get My Boyfriend A Cake For His Birthday. This Year I Asked What Type He Wanted. He Said, “I Don’t Care”
I’m going to borrow this idea… XD Now, just to find out what cartoon/character my bf abhors the most… (but cake flavor will be his favorite, of course!!)
I Wonder What He's Gonna Do When He'll Become 90
Two Is Less Than Three
This Is What A Human Hand Looks Like Under A Microscope
My Friend's Tattoo. When Asked "What Does That Mean?" He Replies, "I Don't Know, I Don't Speak Chinese." That Is Literally What It Means
Note: this post originally had 112 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.