Author Archives: Scott Gilman

Children’s Clapping Game: Lemonade, Crunchy Ice

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Scottsdale, AZ
Performance Date: February 11, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

“Lemonade 

Crunchy ice 

beat it once beat it twice 

turn around touch the ground 

kick your boyfriend out of town 

Freeze 

American cheese 

I think I’m gonna sneeze 

achoo woohoo”

Background:

The informant used to perform this song as part of clapping game in pre-school and elementary school in Arizona. She described it as an activity kids would do while lining up, such as when they were leaving the playground. She interpreted it as a distraction and time-passer, as well as something you got the joy of passing on/teaching. This was a regular activity for her and her classmates that those in her circle all knew. This was one of a few clapping games, rather than the only one they played.

Thoughts:

This recitation seems similar to other childhood clapping games such as “patty-cake”, but with different lyrics and rhythm. This game also seems more physically active and disruptive to the line than other similar games I’ve seen, with my informant demonstrating exaggerated hand movements not restricted to clapping. Presumably, this would be counter-productive to an organized line. This seems to be an example of children’s folklore responding in a disorderly way to the order imposed by adults, which is a concept explored by Jay Mechling. Children have little power, he says, and so one of the ways they squeeze some power into their grasp is through disorder. This piece of folklore seems to manifest that principle with physical disruption and nonsensical lyrics.

Traditional Practice: Whistling in a Theater

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Singing Instructor
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 19, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

“Okay, so the first story I’ve got is something that I encountered working in the theatre in Germany. And I, for some reason, when I don’t think about it, whistle. And I remember being in the theater and without consciously doing it I was whistling going down the halls and one of the managers pulled me aside and really reprimanded me and said that, you know, that that was really a bad thing to do. I wasn’t really sure why and then I went back and I asked someone about it and they said that was a really big superstition, and not to do that at all, and it actually goes back to when the theaters used gaslights for lighting. And if the flame went out, the only way that you’d really know that it was out was a whistling sound. And so, if someone was whistling through the halls it could really kind of cover up or hide the fact that the gas light had gone out.”

Background:

My informant grew up in America before departing to Germany for several years to sing in German operas. This happened relatively soon after college, so he was a newcomer to both the professional theatre world and German culture. My informant explains that this is a superstition that apparently extends to American theaters as well. They present it as the product of a practical concern kept up for tradition’s sake.

Thoughts:

This is an interesting example because it started out one of two ways. Either this practice was occupational folklore at first passed between workers at a theater or it was a company or institutional policy and wasn’t originally folklore at all. However, as gaslights were faded out of theaters, this practice remained as a matter of tradition. What’s interesting is that this isn’t a superstition- there aren’t stated consequences for whistling in a theater. The reprimanding person doesn’t say that something bad will happen. It’s simply a forbidden practice because it used to be forbidden. 

Children’s Clapping Game: Candy on a Stick

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Scottsdale, AZ
Performance Date: February 11, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

“Candy on a stick that makes me sick, 

It makes my tummy go two-forty-six, 

Not because you’re dirty, not because you’re clean, 

Not because you kissed a boy behind a magazine. 

Hey boys do you wanna fight 

I see a guy with his pants on tight 

He can wibble he can wobble he can even do the splits, 

But I bet ya ten bucks that he can’t do this. 

Close your eyes and count to ten, and if you mess up start over again”

Background:

The informant used to perform this song as part of clapping game in pre-school and elementary school in Arizona. She described it as an activity kids would do while lining up, such as when they were leaving the playground. She interpreted it as a distraction and time-passer, as well as something you got the joy of passing on/teaching. This was a regular activity for her and her classmates that those in her circle all knew. This was one of a few clapping games, rather than the only one they played.

Thoughts:

This recitation seems similar to other childhood clapping games such as “patty-cake”, but with different lyrics and rhythm. This clapping game also seems more based in gender than the clapping games I’m familiar with, which, though normally performed by young girls, did not stake boys so firmly as another entity. This may be an example of defiant/experimental lyrics in schoolchildren with its fighting, kissing, and tight pants. Jay Mechling explains that children tend to experiment with “inappropriate” lyrics as a way to rebel against the dominant adult figures and explore adult themes that they’re marginally aware of safely. This activity seems to be a definitively gendered form of adolescent expression. The purpose would be to explore kissing, fighting, and tight pants in a low-stakes context. For another version of this game, see Tucker, Elizabeth. “Children’s Folklore: A Handbook.” United States: ABC-CLIO, 2008. 18.

Children’s Game: Spanking Machine Tag

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Medical Writer
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Informant: “Here’s a neighborhood game that I just remembered we used to play. It was very popular in our neighborhood. And I don’t know where it was picked up. You know, I was one of five kids, so we played a lot of games together and so we played a lot of games together, and the neighborhood would play a lot of games together, and we played a lot of tag. So we’d play some pretty typical tags like freeze tag, or just tag, or… I can’t remember the other names.”

Collector: “Like zombie tag. Or the version of it, yeah.”

Informant: “Zombie tag, yeah. So, one that we played pretty frequently- maybe it was pretty common, I’ve never seen anyone else do it -it was spanking machine tag. So, when someone gets frozen by tag, if they can stand with their legs apart like a teepee or like an A-frame and someone else can crawl through their legs before the person who’s it catches them, the person gets free.”

Collector: “Oh, yeah. I’ve played that.”

Informant: “Okay, so maybe it’s—”

Collector: “The word spanking in the title threw me off.”

Informant: “Maybe… Oh, I think we would spank them as they went through, too.”

Background:

This is a game that, as above, my informant would play as a child in Virginia as one of a number of tag variants. From the tone of voice, it was clear that she enjoyed the game. She called it as a neighborhood game, rather than a school game or kid’s game. Playing this game, she said, was localized to a smaller group than children or Virginian children. She had the opinion that this was a weird thing her neighborhood specifically did.

Thoughts:

Having played a version of this myself when I was a child in Utah, I can attest that this game is widely proliferated. The idea behind crawling through the legs rather than simply touching the frozen body is to provide a further challenge for everyone that’s not “it.” Games where there is an “it” figure are characterized by a balance of power. Power is temporarily granted to the “it” figure and it is the title that transfers from child to child, allowing them to try their hand at power. This modification allows more power for the “it” figure in freeze tag, where it’s normally very easy for the larger group to win and the “it” figure doesn’t change as frequently. This specific version is also a good example of children’s counter-authoritative tendency to introduce things like spanking that they’re not supposed to do into their games in order to push the game outside the boundary of approved play.

Practical Joke: Putting Butter on Your Nose

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Medical Writer
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

“So, the other thing that is family folklore that my dad probably did to you was- he said it was a French-Canadian custom to try and catch the birthday person… if it’s your birthday, he’s going to try and catch you and put butter on your nose. Which is really disgusting. And sometimes it would be- we got smarter, and so we would hide the butter -and so he would do peanut butter. Which in some ways is worse, because it’s really hard to get peanut butter off of anything. You smell like peanut butter all day. So, thanks Dad. ”

Background:

My informant said that this practical joke was a tradition on her father’s side of the family. Her father apparently went through the same thing, as did all the kids in his family. On their birthdays, someone would catch them and put butter on their nose. My informant casts some doubt on whether or not this was actually a French-Canadian custom rather than something someone on her father’s side made up for fun, but that was what she was told. 

Thoughts:

My informant suggests that this practical joke could be fakelore- something that someone on her father’s side came up that they said was a French-Canadian custom with that has since been proliferated. However, I did find another source that mentions this as a Canadian custom: a children’s book on birthday customs. See Powell, Jillian. “A Birthday.” United States: Smart Apple Media, 2007. 1-30. Though a less serious occasion, this seems similar in some ways to Irish practical jokes at wakes or family practical jokes at weddings- the focus is on the fun of the joke, not the feelings of the person for whom the event is for. All of these are times of liminality, and the practical jokes can serve as a way to cope with that.