Category Archives: general

Snake in the Henhouse

Text:

RW: In the American South, the expression “there’s a snake in the henhouse” mean someone in your group is toxic or not a good person.

Context:

RW heard the expression from her grandmother who was born and raised in rural Georgia. She doesn’t know where the expression came from, but assumes it was from farmers who lost chickens to snakes and other predators.

Analysis:

The American South is rich with phrases and expressions that mean something completely different than their literal definition. A common example of this is “bless your heart” which can be a genuine endearment in some parts of the south and an insult in others (in RW’s case, it was viewed as an insult). This is especially interesting because the language and region that makes up what is now known as the American South is fairly young. Despite this, it seems folk expressions are a common and necessary part of language and communication in the South.

“Pride feels no pain”

Text: “Pride feels no pain.”

Minor Genre: Proverb

Context:

L explained, “This proverb came down from my great-grandmother on my mother’s side. It was a saying among Southern women, maybe just ladies in general. The context was that you had to put up with pain for beauty; your looks were associated with how proud you were and how you presented yourself.

“Every time my mother brushed my hair when I was little, there were always tangles, and she would say, ‘Be quiet. Pride feels no pain.’”

Analysis:

The proverb “pride feels no pain” has a fairly straightforward meaning regardless of context: it implies that behaving in a manner that fills you with pride is enough to overcome any discomfort you may feel as a result of such actions. It reminds me of the phrase “beauty is pain,” which more directly relates to the idea that discomfort is an inherent part of beauty –– and that pain is a worthy price to pay to feel beautiful. In comparing the two phrases, considering “beauty is pain” as perhaps the more modern counterpart to “pride feels no pain,” it is interesting to consider the implied difference between the words “pride” and “beauty.” The word “pride” carries a more negative connotation for the person it describes, hinting that it is hubris that really disguises pain, while the word “beauty” seems to be used as more of an attribute for a person, and it is the attainment of the attribute that can be a negative experience.

“Better than a punch in the nose!”

Text: “Better than a punch in the nose!”

Minor Genre: Folk Speech – Simile

Context:

M said, “My grandmother would always say that [proverb] whenever we would complain about something that we didn’t like. She lived through the Depression, and I think she grew up fairly poor. There are a lot of those proverbs and euphemisms about ‘hard work’ from her generation.”

Analysis:

This piece of folk speech reminds me of the saying, “I’ll give you something to cry about.” They both are used to shut down a complaint with the implication that the situation at hand could be made worse, and therefore it is not something to complain about. I think my father [M] is probably correct about its popularity within the generation that lived through the Depression; in trying to raise the subsequent generations who did not need to endure the same levels of hardship, it is likely that those who lived through the Depression shared a mindset that the newer generations didn’t have anything to complain about, as they had not experienced true struggle.

I heard this phrase a few times growing up from my grandmother (M’s dad). However, she would always use it in a comedic tone, getting people to laugh while accepting the situation at hand rather than interpreting the phrase as a true threat of physical abuse.

R2D2 “Hack” at MIT

Text: In May 1999, MIT students pulled a prank that involved making a building resemble R2D2.

Minor Genre: Prank, Practical Joke

Context:

When the Phantom Menace opened in May of 1999, students on the MIT campus colored fabric panels to make a building resemble R2D2, a beloved droid from the Star Wars universe. According to L, who witnessed the building, “MIT is very proud of its prank culture.” Such pranks were common on campus and encouraged among students. They were dubbed “hacks” among those involved, and “hack culture” was widespread at MIT. Part of hack culture was to “do no damage,” which is a potential reason why the administration allowed for such a mischievous culture to thrive.

When the R2D2 “hack” took place, L described that “campus was buzzing. It was the kind of feeling like ‘it’s cool that I go to a school where people do stuff like this thing.’” The prank made national news because it happened at a time when “everyone was going crazy about the Phantom Menace.”

Analysis:

“Interesting Hacks To Fascinate People: The MIT Gallery of Hacks” is a website created by those involved in “hack culture” intended to document the history of pranks at MIT. The website describes the meaning of the word: “the word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and ‘ethical’ prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!).” (https://hacks.mit.edu/) Although hacks are not officially sanctioned by the university, the culture built on clever practical jokes has had a significant impact on broader MIT student culture.

The R2D2 hack described by my mother is officially catalogued on the MIT Gallery of Hacks as the “Great Droid.” It stood in place from May 17th through the 18th in 1999 on the Great Dome building. The “Great Droid” is a prime example of how pranks can utilize popular culture to inspire excitement and a sense of unity within a community. It also provides insight into the values of MIT as a whole; due to its overall high level of safety, the hack received praise from an MIT security officer and the administration initially declared they would allow it to remain in place for three days. The MIT “hack culture,” therefore, was based on intellectual and thorough planning to create large-scale, harmless pranks.

Folk Sayings: “She’s for the Streets”

Informant Context: The informant is a 20-year-old white male from Riverside, California.

Conversation Transcript: 

Collector: “What is a proverb or saying you might share with a guy friend when giving advice about women?”

Informant: “The other week, my boy came to me about a girl he’d been seeing. He found out she was talking to other guys. I told him ‘she’s for the streets’ and to keep it pushing.”

Collector: “What does it mean when a girl is ‘for the streets’?”

Informant: “It means they’re a hoe. That she sleeps around and she belongs to everybody. Like she is willing to do things with anyone on the streets. Kind of like a prostitute.”

Analysis: In recent years, this saying has risen in popularity among the Gen-Z and Millennial demographic. If someone’s viewed as promiscuous, younger generations will commonly deem that person as “for the streets” through online comments or folk lore. The phrase’s popularity is reflected in this decade’s pop music. One notable example is the pop song “Streets,” released in 2019 by rapper/singer Doja Cat.