Playing With / Literal-Minded

Basic Trope: Someone tends to take expressions literally.

• Straight: After Bob tells Alice to "Hit the road", Alice goes out and punches the road.
• Exaggerated: Alice is a demon, and is told by Bob to "go to Hell" during an argument. The gates of hell open and Alice swan-dives in.
• Downplayed:
  • After telling Alice "throw that away" she tosses something at a trash can from a distance instead of dropping it in from a shorter distance.
  • Bob tells Alice to leave him alone, so Alice tells everyone else present to leave the room with her.
• Justified:
  • Alice is a robot, and her AI is not programmed with figures of speech.
  • Alice is The Ditz.
  • Alice is an alien.
  • Alice is a small child who hasn't yet learned about figurative language.
  • Alice has an intellectual disability and/or is on the autistic spectrum, so she has difficulty understanding figurative language.
  • Alice is a foreigner with a poor grasp of English and doesn't want to offend a citizen of her host country (by breaking some unknown taboo), especially one who sounds angry.
• Inverted: Alice twists even the most straightforward statements into the most ridiculous metaphorical interpretations, as in:
  "Um... That taxi's yellow."
  "My taxi is not a coward!"
• Subverted: Alice is told to hit the road; she looks like she's going to hit it, but she just leaves.
• Double Subverted: However, when she's told to go fly a kite, she does so.
• Parodied: In a short time frame she "hits the road", "goes kite flying", "chases a wild goose", "shoots a fish in a barrel" and "puts an Elephant in the Living Room".
• Zig-Zagged: When Alice is asked to "hit the road", she just walks away. When she is asked to "go fly a kite", she buys a kite and flies it. When someone says "Alice could not hit the broad side of a barn", she punches the barn. She, somehow, misses.
• Averted: Despite the cast using many ideas, nobody ever takes them literally.
• Enforced: We need people to know Alice is a Robot Girl. Let's have her punch roads when asked to hit the road.
• Lampshaded: "Um, OK, but I don't see what I'm accomplishing by doing this..." [Punch]
• Invoked: Alice's parents don't teach her about figurative language.
• Exploited: Alice becomes a target of mockery for her rival.
• Defied:
  • Alice downloads a software patch to help her understand figures of speech.^note This would only work if she was, indeed, a robot.
  • Alice studies more figurative languages to improve her language skills.
  • Bob avoids using figurative language around Alice because he knows that she won't understand what he means; instead of telling her to "hit the road", he tells her to leave.
  • Alice asks "What do you mean by that?" instead of going out and literally punching the road.
• Discussed:
  Bob: You have got to stop punching roads, Alice.
  Alice: Then stop telling me to.
• Conversed: ???
• Deconstructed: Alice's literal-mindedness annoys others, preventing her from socializing with potential friends. This results in her becoming lonely and eventually committing suicide. Not to mention her fist hurts.
• Reconstructed: Alice meets several other literal-minded people who decide to start their own community where they can be as literal as they like.
• Implied: Alice and Bob are at a bar, and Bob asks for a Dry Martini. Alice stares at the drink in confusion, surprised that it is a liquid.
• Played for Laughs:
  • Bob and Alice have the next exchange...
    Bob: Well I will be a monkey's uncle.
    Alice: You should talk to your brother about his taste in women.
  • "You crack me up." "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry."
• Played for Drama: Alice is nearly hit by a car while she is hitting the road.

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