A: “If I were going to Paris, where would be the best place to get a baguette?” B: “Oh! You’re going to Paris?”
I’ve done B’s conversational move plenty of times, and I am fully capable of understanding conditionals!
If A is asking me this, the most plausible inference is that this is a playful way of telling me that they’re going to Paris, and they want to get my opinions on what I enjoyed while I was there. My first reaction might be surprise to learn that (plausibly) they are planning a trip there, so I want to establish that with more certainty. This is useful context for the subsequent discussion.
That said, there are plenty of people who have trouble understanding all kinds of complexities. My partner has ADHD, and we recently clarified the extent to which she struggles with processing metaphors. If you tell her “lawyers are sharks,” she knows the conventional meaning of the metaphor. But her brain instantaneously conjurs up an image of a shark dressed like a lawyer, and it takes her a little time to suppress that image and replace it with the analogy that is meant by the metaphor. This becomes more challenging with novel metaphors, which can provoke an immediate reaction of bafflement. But if she has time to process and figure out what comparison the metaphor is drawing, then it’s fine.
In general, I think spreading memes encouraging us to focus on people who are incapable of certain forms of rational thought makes us less rather than more able to accurately interpret other people. Understanding what specific struggles people have, in order to decide whether and how to address them by adjusting one’s communication style, is much more useful.
Yes, if I did B, I might even say something like “I’m not sure what you mean” (though not in those words, but others might), but what I mean is I’m not sure what your intentions are in asking, and I am way more interested in that than guessing about baguettes. The mismatch in interest is so acute that if you don’t answer my question I don’t think it would be especially mean of me to decline to answer yours.
I’ve done B’s conversational move plenty of times, and I am fully capable of understanding conditionals!
If A is asking me this, the most plausible inference is that this is a playful way of telling me that they’re going to Paris, and they want to get my opinions on what I enjoyed while I was there. My first reaction might be surprise to learn that (plausibly) they are planning a trip there, so I want to establish that with more certainty. This is useful context for the subsequent discussion.
That said, there are plenty of people who have trouble understanding all kinds of complexities. My partner has ADHD, and we recently clarified the extent to which she struggles with processing metaphors. If you tell her “lawyers are sharks,” she knows the conventional meaning of the metaphor. But her brain instantaneously conjurs up an image of a shark dressed like a lawyer, and it takes her a little time to suppress that image and replace it with the analogy that is meant by the metaphor. This becomes more challenging with novel metaphors, which can provoke an immediate reaction of bafflement. But if she has time to process and figure out what comparison the metaphor is drawing, then it’s fine.
In general, I think spreading memes encouraging us to focus on people who are incapable of certain forms of rational thought makes us less rather than more able to accurately interpret other people. Understanding what specific struggles people have, in order to decide whether and how to address them by adjusting one’s communication style, is much more useful.
Yes, if I did B, I might even say something like “I’m not sure what you mean” (though not in those words, but others might), but what I mean is I’m not sure what your intentions are in asking, and I am way more interested in that than guessing about baguettes. The mismatch in interest is so acute that if you don’t answer my question I don’t think it would be especially mean of me to decline to answer yours.