Would ths have confudsed you , Ds angry at me

if he’s not used to eating out and watches lots of American tv/social media he might have been asking if soft drinks were bottomless like they often are in American chain restaurants. Sounds like a misunderstanding all round.

Sorry, there are a couple of typos in what I wrote as well! But that's a typing issue. I don't speak like that.

You should try to be careful about how you phrase things. Try to construct shorter sentences that are clear and simple. Then hopefully he will follow suit. As he's 21 though it probably won't make difference at this point to how he speaks, but at least it may make it easier for him to understand you, which should make communication flow a bit more smoothly.

I think he's learnt his confusing phrasing directly from you.
You say "if I ask to clarify" which means if you ask if you yourself can clarify something (to him). But in that sentence you clearly mean to say "if I ask him to clarify".

You're making basic grammatically errors that make what you're saying confusing and mean something other than what you mean to say, but you are saying he doesn't phrase things clearly. He apparat's to have learnt it from you.

The obvious answer is no it wouldn't have had unlimited refills he'd have had to have kept ordering more drinks.

My follow up question to him would have been "So what? What is your point?"

@HowMuchShouldBePaid he should have said ‘are all the other soft drinks bottomless’ or something similar.

I think this issue might be hereditary

Agree

I think your squash thing may have been correct.. Was he asking if he bought his own juice (squash, and added it to the free water) would they have kept topping up the water part of it?

Bit of an odd question, but it's the sort of daft thing I'd muse about from time to time, bit like the 'if a tree falls in the forest would it make a sound' type hypothetical question.

Maybe it was supposed to be a light hearted question and he got frustrated when you didn't get it, there was no need to get arsey with you about it though!

That was aggressive of you to tell him to “wind his neck in”

I don’t think there is anything aggressive in him asking
“What don’t you understand?”
When you looked confused at what is a clear question.

How else does one ask what a person doesn’t understand?

Is he dyslexic? Are you? Maybe you both have trouble communicating your message to each other.

Pretty sure OP was agreeing with you. She was saying that she told her son that there was no need to answer aggressively even if she had misheard him.

I wasn’t being ‘aggressive’ - I was saying that I, personally speaking, wouldn’t be putting up with anger from a 21 year old if they didn’t make themselves clear and blamed me for that.

has he gone away to Uni or otherwise mixed with people from elsewhere in the UK. As mentioned above in Scotland juice means pretty much anything you drink that doesn't have alcohol in. If he has been to associating with particularly Glaswegians he may well have picked up different words and expression. I knew instantly what he meant but it's obvious others didn't.

I suspect if he's fed up of having to explain everything he says then his temper might get a bit short.

I can imagine my dd saying something like that as a joke. Like do you think if I bought my own juice they'd top it up haha and if I said sorry what do you mean she'd probably go oh never mind you're so annoying mum.

To be honest I'm a bit the same with my own mum at the moment who half hears what I'm saying and then I'm sick of repeating things as it loses the point or light heartedness of what you were saying in the first place

I think you’re both quite similar…

He means if he bought his own, as in, because you were paying and wouldn't buy one. I understood first time.

Yanbu, he was very rude and aggressive. And his question was very stupid as well. Does he really think juice and water are the same. Does he often ask stupid questions? At a posher restaurant that is certainly not the case and unless they do say bottomless he was very stupid to ask such a question.

And half this thread are saying that you aren’t communicating well, but your son’s question sounds clear. That’s also a fact.

You absolutely are blaming him for not communicating clearly, in your opinion. I’m not surprised he finds it frustrating - possibly even upsetting - when you question him about his meaning, if you do so in the manner you are communicating on this thread.

I’m not saying they would do it. I’m saying it’s not an odd question from OP’s son.

I suspect this is six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Your son’s question seems quite clear to me, in a way that some of your other posts are not.

You might find communication with him easier and less frustrating - for both of you - if you accept that neither of you are very good at putting your thoughts across clearly.

You both need to be more patient with each other, rather than putting the blame on your son for his perceived failings.

I would tend to call all soft drinks juice, but I'm Scottish and that's an idiosyncrasy of our language.
I understand both points of view - DS2 has asd and sometimes it can be difficult to understand what he's trying to say.

But not juice surely, that's expensive and doesn't lend itself to people helping themselves

Would they keep supplying small bottles of Britvic type juices or a refill from a carton, I can't imagine anywhere does either of those things

Not really, depends on where OP is. Where I am juice is used to cover everything from fresh orange to Pepsi to squash.