Monthly Archives: March 2024

“My hand is anxious to redden your cheek” – Saying (Insult)

Age: 21

My roommate E shared with me an insult that his Mom told him in Irdu:  “Humaara haath aap ke rokhsaar kolaal karne ke liye beqarar hai.” This translates to: “My hand is anxious to redden your cheek”. As in, when you say this you are saying that you would like to slap the other person.

E never learned the language, but grew up hearing it from his mother who deeply admired the language and spoke it herself. She would share insults with him and his brother, and this one stuck with him. He fondly recalled that while his mother had a great appreciation for the beauty of the language, Irdu speaking could still, “fuck people up” as he puts it.

“The Bone of Satan” – Tabooistic Vocab (Insult)

Age: 21

My roommate R shared with me an Indian insult: “Shaytaner Haddi”, which literally translates to the “The Bone of Satan”. When you call someone this you are literally saying that they come from a literal part of satan – this wholly bad thing. This essentially used to say that you are calling that person, “the most deplorable person I’ve ever met”. This is applicable when someone has screwed you over.

R said that he found it interesting that despite being such a mean insult, it is also somewhat poetic. He thought that maybe this has roots in colonialism because Satan is a Western idea and would’ve been brought over by White Colonialist. So by calling someone the Bone of Satan you are also aligning them with the oppressor.

“Hard Ears Don’t Hear, Hard Ears Does Feel” – Folk Speech (Saying)

Age: 21

The saying that my friend A told me was, “Hard ears don’t hear, hard ears does feel”. She said that hard ears refer to someone who is stubborn, as in when you tell someone to do something, they will not do it and vice versa. But they will only learn not to do that thing after doing it and finding out the hard way why they shouldn’t do it. This saying is often used in regards to children i.e. parents to their children.

This saying came from A’s mother who is from Barbados. Based off the background that she gave me, Basian culture is very traditional when it comes to children. The lives and role of children is supposed to be very structured and ordered especially as it comes to discipline. So when a kid is told not to do something and then it doesn’t work out for them this is almost a confirmation of the need for that discipline.

Letter Riddle

Text: “Take away my first letter and I remain the same. Take away my last letter and I remain unchanged. Remove all my letters and I’m still me. What am I?”

Answer: a mailman

Context: My informant heard of this riddle when he was in middle school, during which one of his teachers had a book of jokes and riddles that they would read out to the class at the end of each day, and this one in particular stuck with him as it was one of the few that no one could figure out

Analysis: I agree with my informant that this riddle is exceptionally hard to figure out, especially in comparison to other riddles that rely on word play. I think the most difficult part of this is that each clue involving a letter gives the listener a red herring to play with the spelling of the word mailman. Because of this, I agree with my informant’s former teacher that this would be a great riddle to share with their students, as its unusual solution would likely keep the kids thinking.

Albatross Riddle

Text: “A man sits down in a restaurant, and orders albatross soup. He takes one bite, then immediately leaves the restaurant and kills himself. Why did he do it?”

Context: My informant heard this riddle while on a backpacking trip over summer break with his friends in high school. Unlike a traditional riddle, this riddle requires the listener to ask yes or no questions about the man and his situation, until they gain enough information to deduce the answer: the man was on a plane with his wife, and the plane crashed on a deserted island killing her. Before they got rescued, the survivors had to do whatever they could to survive, and the man ultimately ate what he was told by the other survivors to be “albatross soup”, which was really prepared from his wife’s remains. When the man sat down in the restaurant and tasted real albatross soup, he realized it tasted different than when he was on the island, and deduced that he ate his own wife.

Analysis: Because the riddle requires the listener to construct the story from very little initial information, this riddle puts a fun twist on the normal form of the riddle. The yes or no questions allow the listener to feel as if they are uncovering a hidden truth, and the dynamic between the listener and the riddler, combined with the mysterious and dark nature of the initial prompt makes the game fun for both participants.