I was at a bagel store the other day when another man standing on line said to his clerk, "I need a half pound of tuna salad. I need two." and then he made two gestures as if he had a container of some sort in each hand. The clerk simply responded "Right." and went off to get the order.
I thought to myself, "Did this customer want a half pound of tuna salad divided up between two containers of a quarter pound each or did he want two containers with each of them holding half a pound?".
If I had been that clerk, the ambiguity would have made me ask "Half a pound in each container?", but it didn't happen that way. Instead, an inference was made and acted upon and because I was running a bit behind just then and had to leave, I never got to see which way it turned out.
Idioms are commonly used in everyday speech and their meanings, even if not entirely literal, are commonly understood by inference. If I say to somebody in a moment of astonishment, "You're kidding!", it isn't taken as an accusation of attempted levity. It's taken as an expression of personal surprise which is NOT a literal translation of the phrase itself. There is an idiomatic exchange.
Was I missing something about the dialog going on in that bagel store? Was there some idiomatic exchange going on between the customer and the clerk that I didn't pick up on? Am I somehow failing to grasp things that everyone else seems to understand effortlessly or is there something else afoot?
This kind of thing has happened to me before. It's not exactly a terrifying issue so far, but it does make me a little nervous.
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