Linguistic Hypersensitivity Disorder

Dear friends,

I have a problem.

A psychological disorder, to be precise. This is not a joke, it is a serious entry, really. Do hear me out.

I have Linguistic Hypersensitivity Disorder. No, it does not really exist, it's a term I made up. If I were to provide a definition, it is 'being excessively sensitive to the semantics of language'.

There are 3 components to this disorder which I will go through in turn - excessive semantic activation,  oversensitivity to irregularities and overinterpretation of emotional content in language.


1) Excessive semantic activation
When you see the word 'deliver', what do you think of? If you said 'mail', 'parcel', 'a speech', they would all be fairly normal responses. It's natural to think of these relevant associations.

 How about when you see the sentence: 'I went to the post office to deliver the mail' ?Now, with the relevant contextual cue (post office, mail), the word 'deliver' seems unambiguous. The sentence is a straightforward one, right?

Not for me. 

Because of my excessive semantic activation, what goes on in my head is something like this:

" deliver the male? deliver = give birth? deliver mail? letters? Post-it? post office as in lead office? de-liver? removing a liver? removing the liver of a male? "

It's like my brain disregards any contextual cues and automatically provides every possible interpretation of every word in every combination.Not just that, but it also generates homonyms (words that sound similar, such as male and mail) automaticallyAND even breaks up any possible compound word.
For a simple sentence like that, my brain refuses to cooperate but instead goes on at 5 thoughts/second and floods my mind with these semantic alternatives. 

This could be why I love wordplay/puns so much, because I naturally see the world as such. I immediately interpret the secondary meaning of an ambiguous sentence before the primary meaning. I see the pun before I see the original meaning.

This excessive automatic interpretation, more often than not, is annoying rather than helpful. People say I am 'damn lame', 'corny', etc. (When I see these words I immediately think of being handicapped, maize, btw) and think I'm trying to be funny or something. But it's not like I want to. My brain is just wired to BE like this.


2)  Oversensitivity to irregularities
This are a grammatically incorrect sentence.

The above is an example of an irregularity in the English language. Because we have our rules of grammar and syntax, anything that violates them is an irregularity.

It's natural to pick up on such errors. Heck, it's even essential to do so, such as when we are proofreading our assignments.

However, for me, such errors do not just stand out. They jump out at me. No wait, they dont just jump out, they jump at me and double punch and roundhouse kick me in my face. I think staring at a grammatically incorrect sentence for a long time actually makes me feel more uneasy than watching a needle enter my vein. I'm not exaggerating.
Seeing a blatant grammatical error is like having a splinter in my thumb; a sharp rough stone in my shoe; a pesky housefly darting around my face. Make that a dozen houseflies; I just WANT to do/say something about it.

It's not that I want to correct you. I want to correct IT. Call me grammar nazi or whatever, but it seems more like a specific instance of OCD. I am flooded with the thoughts of the bad grammar and how it should be right, and I am compelled to act upon it by telling you.


3) Overinterpretation of emotional content
When someone says 'Thanks alot', it can mean many different things.

If he says it with an exclamation, a smile on his face, he is probably feeling very grateful.
If he says it grudgingly, looking at his shoes, he could be forced to say it or just saying it for manners.
If he says it with a sneer, he's probably being sarcastic and doesn't really mean to thank you.

In face to face settings, you can interpret what the person means by such cues or tone of voice, etc. My problem already begins here - Im VERY attuned to pick up the slightest of cues. And this is of course not always accurate. Perhaps you were exhausted and your "thanks alot" was lacklustre. But I will pick up immediately on the underenthusiastic reply and my brain starts firing away: 'is he being sarcastic? Why? Did I do something wrong? What did I do?'

Of course I don't act upon this all the time. Often after going through this mental checklist, I decide that there's no reason to believe that it was something on my part that went wrong. So I don't go into panic mode.


In online/text messaging it gets worse. Now, gone are the visible cues, and all you have are words. Words that have absolutely no contextual cue whatsoever besides the very syntax and semantics they possess in the sentence.
Imagine how I interpret things like 'Go away'. Does he mean 'haha go away la' or 'go away you #$#@(!@ i hate you'.

I can't think of more examples but the layman's description of this is 'I am a sensitive person'. Yes you may not mean to hurt me with the things you say but you do. I just try to repress it. Damage control. But my brain moves faster than I control it.


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If you have read to this point without just scrolling down from the top without reading anything, I extend my hand to shake yours. Because you have taken about 5-10 minutes of your time to understand me. And I appreciate it. Thank you.