Question!

[conuly]

Why do people define "speaking to oneself" as crazy? If you're speaking to yourself, you're just thinking. I mean, that's all thoughts are, right, a way of communicating with yourself? Especially if your thoughts are in words, that's speaking silently to yourself.

It's when you're speaking to people who aren't there that we should worry, but that's not what anybody says. They say "speaking to himself", like that's something strange.

Oh, and what about hearing/seeing things? What else is one expected to hear and see other than things??? Why not just say "hallucinating", which is the actual word, or, if you MUST use a convoluted expression, try "hearing/seeing things which aren't there". Unless, of course, they are there, and we're the crazy ones who don't know that....

Comments

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Well, for clarity's sake you can choose to say "hearing things" rather than "auditory hallucinations" and save five syllables on the deal.

[conuly]

But that's not clear. EVERYbody hears things.

[staircase-wit.livejournal.com]

Not deaf people.

[conuly]

True. Actually, many deaf people DO hear things, it's just that the noise stays in the ears and never makes it to the brain.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Now we're getting into semantics and colloquialisms.

Once again, in my neck of the woods saying that someone is "hearing things" has the additional meaning that the "things" he/she is hearing may not be audible to everyone.

If I were to point out a sound that others may or may not have heard, I would say "I heard something."

When you criticize language for being inexact, you usually run up against colloquialisms sooner or later.

[conuly]

Yeah, I know, but that doesn't mean I like it. In fact, I really really dislike it. Inexact language = more thought for me.