I see a few problems with this: if we try to assign beliefs and statements to people that aren't what they say they believe, but what we think they really believe or meant to say, then we will be biased to interpreting their beliefs and statements to be like the closest cliches we know, or closer towards ideas we take seriously. We might think they didn't mean X, because we think X is ridiculous, and when they protest that we've not responded directly, there'll be an impasse. They may even accuse you of deliberately misinterpreting what they've said. Also, if we respond to what people actually say, then there'll be an incentive for people to be clearer in their words, which seems a net positive. Fin
Interpreting words further than simply understanding what people actually say seems like it could be rife with errors. This doesn't mean it's not a useful skill, but I wouldn't make it my general strategy.
That's why its important to check for understanding if you're at all unsure. It's the ideological turing test thing.
Edit: I didn't realize this before writing the post, but what I'm referring to is The Principle of Charity.
Story
I was confused about Node Modules, so I did a bunch of research to figure out how they work. Explaining things helps me to understand them, and I figured that others might benefit from my explanation, so I wrote a blog post about them. However, I'm inexperienced and still unsure of exactly what's going on, so I started the blog post off with a disclaimer:
My friend said that it's a bad idea to do that. He said:
I interpreted what he said literally and basically responded by saying:
This was stupid of me. He didn't mean "claim that you're 100% sure of what you've written". He didn't mean "pretend that you're way more confident in what you've written than what you really are". He meant, "I think that it comes across as you being less confident than you actually are. And so I think you should reword it to better communicate your confidence."
I shouldn't have interpreted what he said so literally. I should have thought about and responded to what I thought he meant to say. (Although, he also should have been more precise...)
Thesis
People often interpret and respond to statements literally. Instead of doing this, it's often useful to think about and respond to what the other person probably meant.
For example, "If I interpret what you said literally, then A. But you probably meant X, so B. If you meant Y, then C."
Depending on how confident you are in your interpretation, you should probably respond to a variety of possibilities. Like if you're < 80% sure that you know what they meant, you should probably respond to possibilities that have at least a 5% chance of being what they meant. I'm not sure whether 80 and 5 are the right numbers, but hopefully it communicates the point.
Why don't people do this?
I see two likely reasons:
Practical considerations