Informant: The informant is Aliki, an eighteen-year-old young woman who grew up in Yonkers, New York. She is a freshman at Concordia University in Irvine, California. She is of Greek descent.
Context: We sat on the floor of my dorm room at the University of Southern California when Aliki visited me during her spring break from college.
Original Script:
Informant: This takes place when you are eating at the dinner table. Say my aunt will call us. In Greek, my mother will say to my aunt, “Your mother-in-law loves you.” When she says this, my aunt will understand that she is at the table eating. That way, she doesn’t have to explain to my aunt that she is eating; she just gets it. This phone conversation has to take place between two Greeks because you speak the phrase in Greek. My aunt, or whoever is on the phone, and my mom can laugh it off, and my aunt will tell her to enjoy her meal and hang up. My mother taught me this when I was about thirteen. That’s around the time I saw her do this for the first time. I just remember that one day, my mom kept saying it.
Interviewer: Why is this piece of folklore important to you?
Informant: I think it’s just kind of important to know because it’s part of my culture. Also, it’s useful to know because if I called someone and they said that my mother-in-law loves me, I should understand what it means.
Personal Thoughts: I like this piece of folklore a lot because I think it is very unique. It is interesting to me that Greeks have a general understanding of what to do when they hear the phrase, “Your mother-in-law loves you” over the phone. I also find it compelling because it seems that this phrase takes just as long to say as something like, “I’m eating right now. I’ll call you back.” Since the two are just as simple to say, it is interesting that Greeks choose to say something which most people would deem more confusing, rather than just explaining what they are doing.
Category Archives: folk metaphor
A Goat Rope – A Southwestern Metaphor
“That’s a goat rope”
Folk metaphors are comparisons made between two unlike things for effect, in this case a folk metaphor from my father who spends a lot of time on cattle ranches in rural Arizona. He has lived in Arizona all his life, and is an amateur cowboy.
Me: When you say something’s a goat rope what does that mean?
TC: It means that something not right, that it’s a mess or it’s too difficult to be bothered with. Something that you cannot change, but is something annoying to deal with. Something that is difficult and not easy and not quite right.
Me: When would you use it?
TC: When I saw something that wasn’t right or was a mess or a situation that is irritating. For example the parking lot at Costco today was a goat rope, because it was crowded and disorganized and people were driving stupid.
Me: Where did you learn it?
TC: I don’t know where I learned it from. I mean, have you ever tried to rope a goat? It’s hard and they are smelly and irritating. Therefore, a goat rope. Maybe I learned it on the ranch, I don’t know.
Analysis:
Folk similes are usually connected to tabooistic vocabulary, that is words we arrant supposed to talk about, however in this case it is most certainly not. It is almost an occupational or niche simile as it has to do with ranching. The average person has never had to rope a goat (referring to the practice of tying a goat’s legs together either for competition or transportation) and therefore would not understand the difficulty of roping one, and therefore the meaning of the simile would be lost on them. Therefore, it almost becomes an identity simile, those who have worked on ranches would understand its meaning,, but an outsider would not. The simile is applied to non-ranching circumstances like an irritating parking lot or a busy airport, this fact is interesting as it is the person using their ranching identity outside the ranch and most likely to a person who would understand.
Juha’s Nail
Juha had a house he liked very much. But, he needed some money so he had to sell it. For him, to keep a connection to his house, he put in the contract that he is selling all of the house, except a nail on one of the walls. After a week, Juha knocked the door, and when the new owners opened, he told him “Excuse me, I am here to check on my nail.” And he kept doing this almost every day and especially during lunch or dinner time, to be able to share the owner’s meals. After a while, the owner was so tired of Juha’s visits, he left the keys with him and departed. The phrase “Juha’s Nail” stayed as a expression for when you use an excuse to keep coming back for something you are attached to.
Background information: This is a piece of folklore read about in school in the Middle East. The informant found the story for the phrase, “Juha’s Nail,” particularly funny. Juha is a recurring character in many Middle Eastern stories.
Context: The informant told me about this story in a conversation about folklore.
Thoughts: I think it’s so cool and interesting to have a metaphor used in language that started as a story/joke. I have not learned about Arabic metaphors, so it’s fascinating to learn about the origins of one of them.
Arabic Expression
طلعله من الجمل اذنه
Transliteration: Telaalu min al jamal ednu.
Translation: “He got only the camel’s ear.”
When someone works hard to get big share of a deal but the outcome turns out to be very small because many other people shared it with him.
Background information: An expression known in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. This is a common figure of speech in the Arabic language.
Context: The informant told me about this expression in a conversation about folklore.
Thoughts: This is a very interesting way to describe this situation, one that appears to be quite common all throughout history to today. I find the use of metaphors in other languages to be fascinating and a colorful way to carry out the language. I don’t think I use nearly the amount of metaphors as other languages (such as Arabic) when I speak English.
Circassian Metaphor
Someone asked a Circassian Elder, “Which is more important, to love, or to be loved?”
He replied, “Which wing is more important for the bird, the left wing or the right wing?”
Background information: This is a Circassian metaphor, or more broadly, folk speech. The informant heard it from her mother.
Context: The informant told me this metaphor in a conversation about folklore.
Thoughts: This is a nice little metaphor, comparing love and the wings of a bird. It shows how the importance of both loving and being loved goes hand-in-hand. They must coexist, and one is not necessarily more important than the other – they’re both equally important in this life.