Author Archives: Claire Nickerson

Children’s Game – American

The informant says he “probably learned [the following game] in elementary school or something”:

The game is called “Red Light, Green Light,” and the basic rules are that one player allows the rest to rush forward from a start line when he says, “green light,” and has his back turned, but the other players must stop suddenly if the leader says, “red light,” and turns around, lest they be caught moving and get sent back to the beginning. The first player to reach and touch the leader becomes the next leader. Here are the rules in the informant’s own words: Red Light, Green Light

When asked when the game was usually performed, the informant responded, “I don’t think I played it any time beyond, like, elementary school, or . . . Either during recess or with some friends of mine at, like, a kiddie birthday party—four, five, six, seven, you know, something like that.”

The informant’s opinion of the purpose of the game is that it allows children to “get some of their inherent sneakiness, you know, resolved without getting into any real trouble, ’cause the worst that happens is you get sent back to the beginning of the line.” This might be construed as a useful function, making children more governable the rest of the time; however, the informant thinks the game is more “a subversive game designed to, uh, uh, to effectively teach people that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t get caught.” In his words, the game is “designed to teach you to be sneaky—the idea that if someone’s not looking, you can get away with something.” He concluded by saying, “I’m not sure that, ultimately, the message is all that positive.”

The informant compares “Red Light, Green Light” to other games that might be considered folkloric cognates—“Mother May I” and “Simon Says”—commenting, “There’s a whole sort of series of games that’s about can you follow instructions, can you be sneaky without getting caught.” However, Rae Pica and Mary Duru, authors of the book Great Games for Young Children, have a different concept of what the game is supposed to teach: “listening skills,” “traffic safety skills,” and “self-control” (47), among others. Clearly they endorse the game from an adult standpoint and do not consider it subversive. That the game is included in their book is evidence of multiplicity, and there is a slight variation in their rules for the game:  instead of being sent back to the beginning, children who get caught moving are designated as “yellow lights, which means they must walk in place until the signal to go is given again” (47). And instead of the person who reaches the leader first getting to go next, Rae and Duru recommend a less partial system of deciding an order in advance (47). Clearly the name “Red Light, Green Light” has a terminus post quem of the invention of the stoplight, but the cognate games that the informant mentioned may be older.

Source:

Pica, Rae and Maray Duru. Great Games for Young Children: Over 100 games to develop Self-Confidence, Problem-Solving Skills, and Cooperation. Beltsville, Maryland: Gryphon House, 2006.

Contemporary Legend – Texas

The informant heard the following contemporary legend about the Garza Theater in Post, Texas when he “went down to see a show there and was talking with some people who [he] had worked with once before” at the cast party afterward:

The theatre is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Will McCrary, its founder, who died of AIDS. Supposedly he is sometimes seen there by those who didn’t know him when he was alive and is sometimes heard to whisper forgotten lines to desperate actors from the wings. The full story as the informant tells it is in the accompanying sound clip (2 parts): Garza Theater Part 1 Garza Theater Part 2

The informant “told [the legend] to three or four people right after [he] heard it,” all of them former theatre employees who “had gone on to other things.” He also likes to perform the legend when the conversation strays to ghost stories and “in a class situation once when [he] was discussing the tradition of theatres being haunted.”

The informant’s reaction to the legend is one of mixed disbelief and fascination: “I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know that I believe in ghosts at all, but I can’t prove there aren’t any, but I’ve never seen one, so I’m fairly nonplussed about it myself. If it were true, art of me would think it was sort of awesome that you could just hang out at a place that you cared about forever and ever and ever.” He also feels a little sorry for the ghost, if there is one: “Part of me also thinks that if there is something after you die, it would be sort of lame to be stuck in a theatre in a 2500-person town in the middle of Texas.” According to the informant, the legend of the haunting is now printed in the theatre’s programs for all of the patrons to read.

When the “high school students and volunteers” that the informant mentions told of their inexplicable experiences, those stories became memorates added to Will’s legend. The legend, if it is indeed now printed in the programs, has become folklorismus—the theatre uses it as a way to generate interest and make money.

Blason Populaire Joke

The informant learned this joke, which falls under the category of blason populaire, from one of his friends in junior high school. He says that he has also heard it from other active bearers as a “black joke”:

“How do you stop a Mexican from drowning? The answer is, of course, take your foot off his head.”

The informant says that when he performs this joke it is usually in a group of friends who consider vulgar jokes acceptable and that he varies the ethnicity to match the group’s prejudices. He also admits that sometimes he tells the joke when he’s “around people who are racist” and he doesn’t “want to make any waves.”

He considers it to be a “pretty bad joke” but says it’s “easy to use for a cheap laugh, as an icebreaker.”

The informant grew up in Tujunga, which according to the LA Times’s 2009 “Mapping LA” project has a black population of only 1.8%. It is therefore not surprising that he would have heard the “black joke” cognate, since the members of the audience to the joke would have been unlikely to be black or have black acquaintances on whose behalf to be offended. However, it is perhaps more surprising that his friend told it to him as a Mexican joke, since according to the same project, 14.7% of Tujunga’s residents have Mexican ancestry. It may be that the joke was more acceptable to tell because some members of the active bearer’s audience had Mexican ancestry and were willing to laugh at themselves, or perhaps the informant’s friend had Mexican ancestry himself.

Source: Ardalani, Sarah, et al. “Tujunga.” Los Angeles Times. 2009. Tribune Newspaper. 25 April 2011 <http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/tujunga/#ethnicity>.

Catch Riddle

The informant learned the following catch riddle from his peers in elementary school:

“Does your mom know you’re gay?”

The informant’s comment on why the riddle is funny was that “No matter how they answer, they’ve clearly admitted to being gay.” He says that he performed in primary school but seldom does so any more because he no longer finds it amusing.

The informant regards riddles as “a childish thing in general . . . as an adult, people just look at you strange if you [say] something like that.” He calls this riddle in particular “a stupid kid joke” because “it’s not like anyone’s going to go with a verbal agreement.” However, he also made an assertion that seems to contradict his contempt for the riddle: “If I talked to a magic machine that was like the reverse of Tom Hanks’s Big and sent me back in time to elementary school, I would totally do that to some of the little bitches.”

It is interesting that the informant previously viewed the riddle from an emic perspective and has switched to an etic perspective now that he is out of elementary school–he is no longer part of that folk group. The informant’s assessment that very few people would assent to give a definitive answer to the riddle is most likely correct, and in Los Angeles, which, according to the scientific journal Demography, had in 2000 the second-largest gay population of any city in America (by number, not percentage), there is likely not as much of a stigma attached to being gay as in other places, though homosexuality has certainly gained acceptance since 1991, when the informant left elementary school. Nonetheless, many people who are not homosexual do get offended when it is intimated that they are, which might be perceived as amusing to active bearers of this joke.

Source: Black, Dan, Gary Gates, Seth Sanders, and Lowell Taylor. “Demographics of the Gay and Lesbian Population in the United States: Evidence from Available Systematic Data Sources.” Demography 37 (2000): 139-154.

Proverb Parody – American

The informant says he learned the following proverb parody from “social interaction at some point” but doesn’t remember exactly where:

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but only if you aim for the head.”

The informant claims that he “normally wouldn’t” perform the proverb parody unless someone else brought the proverb up first.

He thinks that “the whole ‘apple a day keeps the doctor away’ thing is dumb to begin with.”

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” the non-parodied version of the proverb, is part of the parameiological minimum for speakers of the English language. The informant did not specify why he felt that the proverb was foolish, but it may be because there is no nutritional reason to believe that eating an apple every day would keep the eater healthy. This version, which implies that throwing the apple at the doctor would be a more effective way of keeping him away, scoffs at the idea that eating an apple each day would have any great effect. Joe Schwarcz, the author of An Apple a Day: The Myths, Misconceptions, and Truths About the Foods We Eat, agrees: “It is certainly possible to have a good diet and never eat apples, just as it is possible to gorge on apples and have a horrible diet” (7). This proverb parody, like many others, serves as a vehicle for mocking traditional wisdom.

Source:

Schwarcz, Joe. An Apple a Day: The Myths, Misconceptions, and Truths About the Foods We Eat. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007.