Author Archives: Jamie Tunkel

French Saying

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: French

“La douleur t’apprend à prier.”

Translation: Pain teaches you to pray.   

 

The informant told me that her mother uses French sayings all of the time, but she rarely remembers them specifically. She said this one stuck out to her. She comes from a family that is not specifically religious. She said that the phrase isn’t necessarily for very religious people, but that it means that in times of pain you turn to prayer. According to my informant, the phrase means that pain humbles you. I think it is interesting that her mother uses this phrase and that she remembered it since she does not come from a religious family. It implies a connectedness, spirituality, and a human need to reach out for help that is really applicable to a lot of people, regardless of whether they have specific religious affiliations.

 

She’s Seen the Moon

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: French

“Anytime a girl has her first period, they tell her she’s finally seen the moon.”

 

The informant heard this phrase from her mother, who, in turn, heard it from her cousin. The informant’s mother is Cameroonian and in their culture people speak in a roundabout way. You are not supposed to say directly that someone has started menstruating, so, instead, they used this phrase. According to the informant, women are connected to the moon and their periods have to do with the lunar cycle. She said that the moon changes every twenty-eight days and that a woman’s cycle is twenty-eight days.

“That’s bougey”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“So, um, a good friend of mine was, her sister was in town, her younger sister, and I met the younger sister, and, um, the younger sister was saying some things that my friend was making fun of her for because my friend said that her sister used slang and lingo and stuff like that wrong. And, I said, like, well, how so? How do you misuse slang? And my friend said, the word “bougey” is one of the words that her sister misuses. And I said, oh, well I’ve never heard that word before. What does “bougey” mean? And she said, “bougey” stands for bourgeoisie, so it really means upper middle class or whatever, but her sister uses the word “bougey” as ghetto or trashy or dumb… as a negative lower class connotation. So, the complete opposite of what it really means. And I said, oh, well, I don’t understand, give me an example, and her sister turned to me and said, [uses ghetto voice] “I hate basketball, that’s bougey.” So, somehow, it just became this thing, without even knowing it, I just started saying “bougey” all the time, and so did my friend, and so did all of my friends… but, like, in the context that my friend’s sister uses it.”

 

I learned the word “bougey” from the informant, and I asked him to tell me where he learned the word from originally. When the informant taught me this word a few months ago, he taught me to use it in the incorrect way (the way his friend’s sister uses it.) I find this slang to be interesting because I have used it in many different contexts and received many different responses.

The people who tend to know the term either live in or go to college in major cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. In fact, the informant told me that his friend and his friend’s sister is from Chicago. When I used the word on a trip back home to New York, only my friend who went to school in New York City and my friend who went to school in Chicago knew the word.

Most of my friends who live in other cities use the word correctly. However, when I told my friends back in New York about the improper usage of the term, they thought it was funny, but, after a few days, they started to use it both properly and improperly as well. Whether used properly or improperly, the word has a negative connotation. Being bourgeoisie is considered a negative thing and being “ghetto” is considered a negative thing.

I think the word is very timely and relevant because its use seemed to spring up just as all of the “99 percent” protests were going on, and those protests mostly took place in large cities. However, the word “bougey” and an alternative spelling, “bougie,” appear on the website www.urbandictionary.com, and several posts which provide similar definitions for the slang predate the 99 percent rallies, so the word has been around for a while.

Telephone Pictionary

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“I learned this game from a friend in college… so you get in a group of like six or more people, it doesn’t really matter, the more people the better. Um, and, however many people there are, each player gets that many small sheets of paper. So if there are eight players you get eight pieces of paper. Um, and each player starts by writing something really random down. It can be anything… a phrase, a saying, a random collection of words that don’t make sense. It’s more fun if it’s more difficult. And then, you start the timer, and everyone passed their whole stack to the right. And, once you get a new stack, you take the top card, read it, put it on the bottom, and on the next card you try to draw that. And then once thirty seconds are up, you pass the cards in the same direction. So you get a new stack with a picture and you look at the drawing, flip it to the back, and write what you think that is a drawing of. And then, this continues until you’ve done it however many players there are and you get the original stack back. And then you just get to show to the whole group the projection of where you started and where you ended up and it is frequently hilarious. Um, the point isn’t to get it right. The point is to see how hilarious it is when people misunderstand drawings or can’t draw something as well as they should be able to.”

 

I find this game to be interesting because, unlike the individual games of Telephone or Pictionary, the point is not to see if you can get it right. Rather, the game is more enjoyable when people get the answers wrong. I’ve played this game before with the informant (who taught it to me). He learned the game while in college. The game is intentionally meant to twist the purpose of games that most kids grew up playing. I think the game represents a sort of rebellion against the games we all played as children. People often try to write inappropriate or ridiculous things on the papers (I’ve seen some foul language used in the game.)

Jewish Easter Egg Hunt

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“So, in my family, holidays are a big deal, and we are not very religious one way or another, but we do, um, partake in several, I guess, Christian holidays, and Easter is one of the big ones. Um, however, we have this Jewish friend, who, um, had never experienced Easter before, um, and so, she, we decided to invite her to Easter one year so she could experience her first ever Easter and so she came over and um, we did the typical things like dyeing Easter eggs and having Easter dinner. But, we decided to twist our traditions to uh accommodate for her Jewishisms. So she told us about this tradition she used to practice as a child. It’s like this little stale piece of bread, it’s like matzah, and you hide it. She used to do this as a child. It’s called the afikomen. So, yea, I guess it’s a Jewish tradition to hide the matzah and be like, hey, kids, go find the afikomen. And whichever little Jewish lad finds the afikomen gets a reward.

So then, we decided to kind of mix the two traditions because finding an afikomen is very much like finding an Easter egg, so, um, my parents, along with hundreds of Easter eggs, hid an afikomen, and whoever found it got twenty dollars. We, of course, all expected the Jew to find the afikomen, but the first time it was my brother, a non-Jew, who found it. So now we do this every year… we hide an afikomen with the Easter eggs.”

 

The informant’s conflation of two different religions’ traditions is an interesting example of how folkloric traditions can blend together and change. The informant’s family found a common thread between the traditional Christian practice of hunting for hidden eggs on Easter and the traditional Jewish practice of hiding and finding a piece of matzah on Passover. In an effort to make their Jewish friend more comfortable and to learn about Jewish culture, the informant’s family blended together these two traditions.

However, the informant’s family took the search for the afikomen out of context. Traditionally, the children search for the afikomen at a Passover seder, and there are multiple reasons and explanations for this practice. Some say that the tradition of hiding and searching for the afikomen is an effort to keep the children awake throughout the seder, which can be a very long, traditional meal, sometimes lasting for hours. Searching for the afikomen can keep the kids occupied while the adults conduct the seder. Another explanation for the purpose of the afikomen is that seeking the matzah symbolizes future redemption for the Jewish people. However, in the case of the Jewish Easter egg hunt, the afikomen is used merely as a symbolic gesture— a lone Jewish artifact hidden among plastic Christian relics, but, ultimately, meant to serve the same purpose as the Easter eggs (you find something and you are rewarded for it.)