Category Archives: folk metaphor

“Send it!”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/23/15
Primary Language: English

“Okay, so in the snowboarding world, when, um, you’re about to, like—‘cause I was a competitive snowboarder, you know, and so we would hit, like, really big jumps or something and then, or like if the pipe was like really big that day, um, so usually it’s used with jumps that are like over like 25 feet, so no like it doesn’t have to be big [laughs of disbelief from other people in room], but usually they’ll be like 90 feet when people use this saying and it’s not like, it’s like a, um, we would be like, ‘Oh, like fucking send it!’ That means like ‘huck yourself,’ like ‘do like what you got’ or yeah, like spin whatever, do flips and so it’s like just like ‘give it your all’ type of deal and so yeah we would just use ‘sending it.’ ‘Cause then it’s like ain’t nothing comin’ back, ‘cause you’re sending it and you’re giving it your all and you’re gonna kill it.”

 

The informant was a 21-year-old USC student who grew up in competitive snowboarding and has dabbled in CrossFit and other workout programs. She has been in a prominent sorority on campus since coming to USC and goes out every night of the weekend, as well as some nights of the week. I live with the informant and the interview took place in my room during one of the lengthy conversations we often have. The informant has been known to use aspects of her athletic and workout life in social interactions and “Send it!” is no different. She went on to tell me that “So now I’ve started to integrate that into the Greek life culture and so if someone’s in a drinking game I’m like, ‘Dude, fucking send this game!’ and they’re like, ‘I’m gonna send it.’ (Interviewer says: “It’s not coming back!”) And then they drink a lot. Yeah, it’s not coming back. So then they just like drink a lot.”

 

This piece of folk speech was interesting to me because of the meaning behind something like “Send it!” The other people in the room and I got hooked on the idea that you would say it because “it wasn’t coming back.” In addition to this being about “giving it your all,” it seems like it’s about taking opportunities when you have them. It would make sense, then, that the informant would translate this phrase into other areas of her life, like the Greek life culture. It is easier to do wild things at a party when you have someone telling you it is the moment to do them. It is also interesting that it is primarily a way of encouraging someone else to do something. While it could come across as pretty aggressive to the uninitiated, those inside of snowboarding culture would know that it is a way of supporting one another and pushing each other to get better and try new things.

“Does he go to our church?”

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 57
Occupation: Singer-songwriter
Residence: Lafayette, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2015
Primary Language: English

*Note: The informant, Laura, is my mother. She is a lesbian.

INFORMANT: “Because, being gay, we had to hide a lot, there were a lot of ways of describing or asking someone whether they were gay, without actually coming out, or describing someone as gay in a way that didn’t out them  in case they weren’t out. So we said things like, you know, ‘Oh, is she a PLU?’ A person like us? They would also say ‘Does he go to our church?’ or ‘Is he a member of the tribe?’ but that’s also a Jewish thing.”

—

As a young gay person in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, when being gay was less widely accepted and could often even be dangerous, gay people came up with special terms to identify other gay people without outing others or themselves. These phrases and questions became sorts of secret passwords among the gay community, the most straightforward way to find gay comrades without overtly putting yourself in a potentially uncomfortable or dangerous situation.

At least in the parts of this country where I’ve grown up, it’s becoming a lot more socially acceptable to be an out gay person, so I assume in these parts that questions like these are becoming lesson common. However, there are still many parts of the country and many parts of the world where homosexuality is considered an abomination or a sin, and undoubtedly people in these parts still resort to the use of questions like the church question.

Secrecy is a recurring theme in gay folklore – everything must be discreet, from the foot tapping in the men’s bathroom to the church question and more. Folklore rooted in discretion is interesting because it cements the bonds of members within the group. Outsiders aren’t aware of these traditions and customs – a heterosexual person may not blink twice if a gay person asks another gay person if a third party ‘goes to their church’ – and the customs have a special meaning to those who understand.

Tumblr Culture

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA/Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 4/29/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: I saw it on Tumblr. Cause you know they have text boxes and stuff.

Collector: I still can’t use Tumblr the right way. I try so hard. I think I just reinstalled it on my phone ‘cuz I’m gonna give it another go!

Informant: I like looking at it just for…You know, that’s how I got the inspiration for my room and stuff.

Collector: I just wanna learn how to use it correctly!

Informant: I can teach you!

Collector: Okay!

Informant: It’s like Pinterest, but there are no organized boards. You just read.

Collector: I just have a hard time finding people to follow.

Informant: What I usually do is, like if I’m going through my feed, the person that I reblog the picture from, whoever they got it from I’ll follow them, too. And then it kind of just becomes this whole thing.

Collector: It’s like Tumblr culture.

Informant: Yeah.

Collector’s Notes: Tumblr is a new craze that has really grown in the past couple of years.  I don’t know much about it, as made clear by the interview, but it seems like second nature to a lot of teenagers and young adults of today.  What it is, essentially, is a combination of all social media, but in a more raw form.  If someone likes a picture, recipe, or quote, they share it as a blog post on Tumblr, and then it gets passed around and commented on by all the other users in a person’s circle of followers.  While I think it’s great for passing around culture and bonding through a digital medium, I worry that it prolongs this idea of no longer using words as communication.  Why say what you’re thinking when you can just reblog someone else saying it for you?  Or a picture?  We’ve come a long way from unlimited prose in statuses on Facebook.

 

“Measure Twice, Cut Once”

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 22MAR2015
Primary Language: English

Kropp was a secret geek in high school. He thoroughly enjoyed sports, rap, and women but had a soft spot for cartoons. He says he would secretly want to be a superhero if he had the chance – “a dope superhero” at that. He is currently a USC student studying environmental science, is enrolled in the NROTC program and loves to skateboard. He has very close ties with his extended family. He hopes to one day commission into the navy as an officer.

“When it comes to sh** that matters, you measure twice, cut once.” Not only is Kropp talking about how much he loves woodwork (because he actually spends hours messing around with wood, even though he doesn’t have a woodshop area yet, he plans on getting one when he graduates college); but Kropp heard this friendly proverb from his father. When Kropp would make mistakes growing up his father would correct him and say this over and over again. He thought his dad was such a hero, such a role model. Then he heard teachers in school saying it. He felt betrayed. When he went home to ask his father about it. His father replied “Son…its a saying. Something you should live by. But something we should ALL live by.”

The way I heard about this is because he and I were working on a project together for a class. I measured the cardboard wrong and we had to go buy a new one. And there you have it. He shook his head and said “Measure twice, cut once”. When I asked him to elaborate he gave the story above. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand it. It was a common meaning – the phrase – but the context was unfamiliar to me.

Analysis: I really love this quote. My parents don’t mess around with tools or maintenance much, the way Kropp grow around a handy father. So I had never heard that saying before, but knew exactly what he meant by it. Basically, think before you do. Don’t jump into things without double-checking, holding everyone or thing accountable. He then elaborated that you could measure a thousand times though, and still end up cutting it wrong. But at least then you can say you tried.

Because the wind will come

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Romanian

Informant Data:

The informant is a 19-year old American student who was born in Santa Monica, California in 1996. She’s lived in Los Angeles County all her life with the exception of when she lived in Paris between late August 2014 to mid-December 2014. Her father’s ancestry is American as far as back as the founding of the Plymouth Colony in 1621 (but before that, the family is originally from England), and her mother’s ancestry is Romanian. She is a freshman at the University of Southern California and thus currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

 

Contextual Data:

Over lunch, I was talking to my informant about her experiences in Europe for the first semester of the school year. My informant eventually began talking about how over Thanksgiving break she visited family in Romania. She eventually told me about some folk speech she kept hearing when she was visiting her Romanian cousins’ house.

 

Item:

“It’s this belief that a wind can cause…so much bodily harm to a person and like kill them…so they would blame everything on the wind. I mean, they’re like ‘don’t do this because the wind will come’ or ‘don’t walk around barefoot because the wind will come.’”

 

Analysis:

This folk speech seems like it’s just another way for adults who want to tell their kids to not do certain things and want their kids to listen to them. The reason they might specifically say not to do something “because the wind will come” may perhaps be because Romania is known for having very cold winters, and so the idea the wind will come if a kid does something bad is truly a scary, ominous message in that society.