Category Archives: folk metaphor

STEP ON A CRACK, BREAK YOUR MOTHER’S BACK

The informant was told in the third grade that if they stepped on a sidewalk crack, their mother’s back would break. This superstition lasted for years and is widespread, and is something that is often told amongst young elementary children. It is also believed that it can cause bad luck and misfortune.

Age: 24

Date: April 3rd 2025

Language: English

Nationality: White/Hispanic

Occupation: Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: California

Analysis: This story falls into the category of superstition and this story is often shared among young students in school. This superstition has racist origins, dating back to the 19th century. The original saying was “step on a crack and your mother will be black”, which then later evolved from being a harmful racist saying to being about bad luck.

Parable / Wisdom Tale

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Context:

A story my informant was told when they were growing up, used to reframe seemingly bad things into a positive light. It’s an example of intergenerational folklore because his mother was told the story as a child as well.

Text: Pulled from a message my informant sent me

“My mom would tell me this story about a man that seemingly fell into continuous fortune and misfortune. The man owns a farm and has a son. His son falls off his horse, and breaks his leg. Everyone tells him “how unfortunate,” but he says “don’t say how unfortunate.” A week passes and there’s a draft, all young men must go fight, but his son isn’t taken because of his broken leg. Everyone says “how fortunate,” again the man replies “don’t say how fortunate.” Later when the boy was healed, he wasn’t able to use his leg the same way. My mom would say this to keep me centered no matter what I’m doing. That not everything that happens to you is bad luck, because everything can change. She was trying to teach me a moral lesson that we must be thankful in every situation and not focus on a specific outcome.”

This story can be categorized as a teaching tale, which are used to convey moral, spiritual, or philosophical lessons. It’s not just a story for entertainment, it’s supposed to be instructive. This story teaches us patience, perspective, and detachment. It also overlaps and can be condensed into some common proverbs like “everything happens for a reason” and “don’t judge too soon”.

Fable – The Ant and the Grasshopper

Nationality: Thai
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English and Thai

My informant is from Thailand and this is a story they were told by their parents as a child.

The Ant and the Grasshopper:

The story goes that the one Fall, there was a group of ants and a grasshopper. The ants were hard working, collecting food for the upcoming winter. However, the grasshopper was not. All he cared about was having fun and playing around without a care in the world. Later, Winter comes and the ants have food to eat but the grasshopper doesn’t. He begs for food but they scold him and say he can’t have any because he was being lazy and didn’t get it for himself. Since he didn’t work for his own food and the ants won’t give him any, he dies from starvation.

This story would be categorized as a tale, more specifically a fable. This story is a fable because it’s a fictional tale with talking animals who are being used to teach a moral lesson.

The moral lesson of this story is that you shouldn’t be lazy and expect people to help you out when you didn’t do the work you were suppose to. It’s a fable that discourages laziness, shortsightedness, and expecting people to give you things you don’t deserve. It encourages being like the ants who work hard for what they have, practice collective and collaborative labor that benefits them all, and are well equipped for the Winter (hard times) because of their hard work.

Chinese New Year – Folk Origin Myth

Nationality: Chinese and American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA

Context:

My informant is from China. In China they celebrate Chinese New Year, otherwise known as Lunar New Year, which is the most important traditional holiday in their culture. Lunar New Year, marking the start of the lunar calendar year, is said to symbolize a fresh start and the opportunity to leave bad luck behind and welcome what the new year has to offer. The lunar calendar follows the moon’s monthly cycles and is about 354 days, making a leap month necessary to stay in line with the seasons. Lunar New Year is widely celebrated in many other East and Southeast Asian countries. Its significance lies in the blending of ancient traditions with modern day practices.

Conversation pulled from audio:
Informant:

“This is like a Chinese New Year’s story, basically. Like why you have to put like you have to have fireworks and like you have to put up like red stuff or wear red on Chinese New Year’s. It’s because like basically there was like a town in the past that was like always like attacked by like I was like tormented, I guess, whatever, like by a monster that lived in the mountains and it would come down once a year to like eat people. And basically like they realized that like by setting bamboo on fire, it causes like a bang, like a really like loud popping and like banging sound. And like the monster would be like scared of the sound. And then they also realized that like the monster was like scared of red because it’s like really it’s like looks like fire, right? And then so, but this is really out of order, but you guys can Polish it.

{ 1:01 }
And so like they did these things and then the monster would like stay away. And like when it did come down, it would like run away. So yeah.

Me: { 1:10 }
The red scared it off?

Informant: { 1:14 }
The red and then the firecrackers because it’s like when you set the bamboo on fire, it like kind of sounds like a firecracker.

Me: { 1:19 }
A ritual. Gotcha. I like that. That’s awesome. Thank you so much.”

Analysis:

Is this story true? Who knows. That’s what makes it a folk myth. Does it even matter if it’s true? I don’t think so. I find it interesting nonetheless. The fact that my informant was told this story as a child as the origin of Chinese New Year is all that matters. That’s what makes it folklore because this story has been pasted down by the folk, true or not.

What I find interesting is it’s explanations for why people wear red and light firecrackers during this holiday. The monster, symbolic or not, is scared away by the color red and the lighting of firecrackers because it’s scared of fire. Is this symbolic? I think so. I think it could represent bad luck, chaos, hardship, or winter and with the new year you celebrate to ward these things off. Often in folklore monsters are used to represent natural or social fears. This monster could also represent the warding off of doubts about the new year and struggles like famine and fear of invasion from the closing year.

Not here to fuck spiders

The Informant

RF is an Australian young adult born and raised in New South Wales.

Text

[subject] [copula] “not here to fuck spiders…”

Use

Its meaning is akin to “not here to fuck around,” said sarcastically as a response to being asked what the purpose of presence is.

Person A: Oy, you here to be an ass or what?

Person B: Well, I’m not here to fuck spiders, am I?

Analysis

The phrase reveals two things about Australian culture, one being the prevalence of spiders in not only the Indigenous people but the English speaking settlers thanks to their prevalent natural presence that contributes to the wild reputation of Australian wildlife. The other insight this phrase offers about Australian culture is the casual, crass sense of humor, especially noted by snarky, dry sarcasm which may extend from the nation’s origins as exiles of the British who are also known for their dry sarcasm.