Literal Response -- The Way to Go!

If there's anything I hate more than figurative language, I don't know what it is. Figurative language is like a knife jammed into my skull, twisting around as it mixes up the vital gray matter contained within. People should only speak literally, without exaggeration, without metaphor or color.

That's why when someone says something, the best response is to take their comment completely literally and turn it right back on them.

For instance, say I've been talking about how much I love fish. I keep going on and on about how great fish are as pets and as dinner entrees. I love fish fish fish.

Then someone says something like, "Oh man, that guy loves bass so much, if he ate any more of it, he'd turn into one!"

That would get my goat. That would fry my chaps. That would raise my dander. My only choice would be to reply, "Hey! I've never said a damn thing about bass. Look through any comment I've ever made and you'll see not one thing about bass. You are incorrect, you jackass!"

That's what I would say.

Some might say that to do so would be ignoring the meat of the message; that a response of that nature would do nothing to further the debate (such as it was). Some might even call me deliberately obtuse or nitpicky or overly literal. Well all of those people can burn in hell. That's right. I said it. And that's all I have to say about that. If someone wants to add to a debate with me, they damn well better be as literal as a value, as opposed to an identifier, written into the source code of a computer program.