>>This is frustrating. I'm becoming paranoid, whatever I write can be taken literally.
>
>To be completely honest, I should amend my statement to read: I certainly never did that and I don't know a single soldier fighting on my side who did and I've been involved in a few skirmishes with the local populace in foreign countries...
>
>which is why I interpreted your statement literally when you didn't intend it so. Just don't pay any attention to me. I will periodically jump on stuff that should be left alone...

I think it was Sam lately, but not the first nor the last, who triggers this kind of reaction in me. Must be a minute cultural difference which I wasn't noticing strongly in my first years here, but seem to notice it a lot lately. It's when I make a general statement, and in passing make an example - just to illustrate it - and the sagovornik (person I speak with) completely hasn't heard the general statement and behaves as if it was all a prelude to my main subject, the example.

I don't remember that ever happening at home... except in comedy. Maybe there are little tricks in language which serve to say "this part is just an example, just an illustration, see it only in the light of the general statement" that one doesn't even notice as communication tools, but which work even unnoticed. One of those is probably the use of generic names - "tamo neki" (some guy there), "Pera, Mika, Laza" (Pete, Mike, Lazar - probably something with Dick & Harry would serve here), "lupam sad" (I'm beating [rubbish] now - meaning to announce an implausible offhand number or datum) etc etc.

Could be I've lost clarity, having spent seven years telecommuting, and thus communicating more in written form, I don't know. But sometimes this feels... here, [this is an example:] as if one would mention "birds of a feather" and the dispute immediately switches to whether it applies to migrant birds, cuckoos and penguins alike, and how many avian species actually don't flock at all, and the previous subject of discussion is completely lost.

I think I've hit a weird combination of my way of thinking/writing/composing messages, and the Anglosaxon preference of inductive/specific thinking over deductive/abstract.