Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Fart Game – Doorknob

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/29/12
Primary Language: English

While this piece of my folklore collection is slightly off-color, I think it is important to document more than just politically correct pieces of folklore. When my friends and I are in particularly immature moods to this day, we play a game called “doorknob”. The game’s rules are as follows:

When you pass gas, you have to say “safety” before someone else says “doorknob”.

If the offender achieves this, they are safe.

When the offender fails to say “safety” before someone else says “doorknob”, the “doorknob”-sayer is given full license to punch the offender as hard as they can in the shoulder until the offender touches a doorknob.

The origins of this game are unknown, but I have personally witnessed it played by a multitude of people- even recently. The most recent instance of the game being played transpired in the Yardhouse restaurant downtown during a Lakers game. A friend of mine (who is listed as the reference for this collection item) was passed gas while we were all sitting at the bar. Smartly, he blurted out “safety” before anyone was given the opportunity to beat him to the punch.

In Tennis, Love Means Nothing

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Bassist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/21/12
Primary Language: English

Dan Scheuler, my Estonian tennis coach growing up, used to always say this to me in several different contexts. Before I describe them, I will give the reader a little background on tennis scoring in case they are not familiar with the sport.

First of all, scoring in tennis makes NO SENSE. The first person to win 4 points wins the game. However, instead of counting by 0s, 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s (like almost every other sport), tennis is scored in increments of Love, 15, 30, 40, and deuce. As you can infer, “Love” is equivalent to zero in tennis terms.

This fact has given rise to many jokes, puns, and proverbs in the sport of tennis. I happened to first hear this one from my childhood coach Dan Scheuler. As you can imagine, this proverb can be used in a number of fashions.

My coach’s most common implementation of this proverb was to mock me when I would have to miss practices. He would scold me the next day in a thick Estonian accent, “Andrew, why do you keep going on dates during our training? Haven’t I told you that in tennis love means nothing?!

I had not heard this saying for several years until this March, when I was out on the court with a friend of mine who is from Northern California. I lamented to him that I had once dreamed of playing professional tennis, truly loved the sport, but was never skilled enough to make it. He joked back, “Andrew, don’t you know? In tennis love means nothing”. In this case, the proverb was used to describe a deficiency in physical ability, which is quite different from my old coach’s preferred use.

These two examples of the proverb “In Tennis, Love means nothing” illustrate that variability of use that proverbs often possess. In addition to changing in physical form throughout time, proverbs’ meanings permutate with time and location.

This proverb is also notable because it is an excellent example of a “tailored proverb”. These proverb are not applicable to everyone. Only a select group of individuals comprehends and is inherently tied to its meaning. There is a place for both these and widely relatable proverbs in modern culture.

 

 

Orchestra Joke: Oboes

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Oboe Performance, Music Composition)
Residence: Mount Vernon, Washington
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Q: How do you get two oboes to play in tune?

A: Shoot one.

My informant told me that this joke is so widespread that she’s heard it multiple times, and she thinks she first learned it in elementary school in a children’s orchestra she was in. Oboes are notoriously difficult to play in tune, so the implication in this joke is that it is impossible for two oboes to play in the same key. As an oboe performance major, my informant says that this stereotype has some truth to it–it can take a few tries to play notes correctly.

This joke is an example of blason populaire. It would need to be explained to someone who isn’t part of an orchestra, since the joke relies on the stereotype that oboes never play in tune.

Orchestra Joke: Violist

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Oboe Performance, Music Composition)
Residence: Mount Vernon, Washington
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

“There was a violist in a community orchestra, and one day he meets a genie who says he’ll grant three wishes. So the violist wishes to double his musical skills. And the next day, he wakes up and he’s a lot better, obviously, so he goes and reauditions and he gets first chair in his orchestra. So he goes to the genie and wishes to double his skills again, and when he wakes up he’s a lot better so he goes and auditions for a better orchestra, and he gets first chair violist, so he’s like, ‘awesome.’ He has one more wish, he says he wants to double his musical skills again, and um, the next day he wakes up—no. wait, yeah, the next day he wakes up and he’s first chair violinist in his community orchestra.”

My informant first learned this joke from another orchestra member in high school. She said that everyone in orchestra makes fun of violas. The stereotype was that violas were just the bad violinists. If an orchestra needed violas, the last chair violinists would switch to viola. She also told me that historically, composers used to neglect violas, so “the violinists would be playing these sixteenth notes, and the violas would just basically keep the beat.”

The implication is that the violists are so far beneath violinists in skill that even after doubling his musical skill three times, the violist is only good enough to be the last chair violinist in the orchestra he started out in. This joke is an example of blason populaire—the joke relies on the stereotype that violists have the least musical skill in an orchestra. The joke also promotes group identity within an orchestra, since it would need to be explained to someone who isn’t part of an orchestra

Folk Belief: Leaving rice in the bowl

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Business Administration)
Residence: Atlanta, Georgia
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese

My informant couldn’t remember when her family first started telling her that if she left rice in her bowl, her future spouse will have ma, acne scars. The number of grains left would equal the number of scars. She remembers that one of her parents usually followed up this warning by saying, “see, your uncle used to leave lots of rice in his bowl”—the implication being that her aunt had a lot of acne scars.

My informant isn’t sure if this is an actual superstition; she has a suspicion that her parents just told her this to get her to finish her meals. The only correlation between finishing a meal and a future spouse that either of us could think of is that grains of rice stuck to the edges of a bowl and acne scars on a face have a similar spotted appearance. This saying was a way for my informant’s parents to direct her actions; her desire for a scar-free future spouse was motivating enough to get her to finish her rice.