Category Archives: Folk speech

Sick-but-Safe

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Masters Student
Residence: Claremont, California
Performance Date: 5/3/2021
Primary Language: English

Main description:

AB: “So, what other types of unique chants does your frat have?”

RD: “We have so many you have no idea. Let’s see, it’s hard to think of them. Because there’s some I can’t tell you. Oh, I know one. It’s, “Sick but Safe.”

AB: “How did “sick but safe” start?”
RD: “This was one I was there for! We were at a chapter meeting, and like most of the house was there, and we were talking about logistics and stuff for Formal. I think a couple of frats were suspended around that time, or something, because I remember we were paranoid about the university suspending us too down if we were too rowdy. Anyway, somebody asked a question about something, I don’t remember, and this one guy stood up all dramatic and then said really slow, “Make it sick, but safe.” And we all just started laughing. And ever since then we just say it all the time.”

AB: “Awesome. When would you say “sick but safe,” and what does it mean?”

RD: “I mean, we chant it before parties a lot. It’s one the rules we go through before we go to parties a lot of the time. So if we’re all going to something we’ll shout it in the bus. Then it usually means like, have fun, but don’t black out or throw up or something. But it’s also like, something you can really say whenever. It’s started as a chant, but it’s really like seeped into frat slang—frat vernacular. Like, somebody could say, “That presentation was sick-but-safe!” Well, I don’t think anybody ever said that, but you get what I mean.”

AB: “So in that case, what would sick-but-safe mean?”

RD: “Umm, I guess that your presentation was good but it was also fun to watch. Like, you said what you needed to, but you also were funny.”

AB: “So, if you said sick-but-safe to anyone on campus, would they know what it meant.”

RD: “No, it’s definitely kept within our frat. It’s not like a secret, I would say, but it’s—it’s that we don’t really share chants and stuff with other frats.”

AB: “Do you know if other frats have chants with similar meanings?”

RD: “Um, I’m sure they do. But I don’t know them.”

Informant’s interpretation:

AB: “So, what does sick-but-safe mean in general, and why does your frat say it?”

RD: “I think it says a lot about our mindset. Like I was saying, frat culture gets a lot more criticism now than it used so I think they’re all having to kind of adapt to stay frats. So sick-but-safe caught on I think because it sort of captures that, and it’s an easy way to say it.”

Personal interpretation:

The informant emphasizes that fraternity culture at his school (a small, liberal arts college in the South) balances irreverence with responsibility. “Sick-but-safe” helps to articulate this balance. Curiously, it is unique to the informant’s fraternity (other campus fraternities would not say it nor understand what it means,) so it may be that other frats may have sayings/words with similar meanings.

Fingers have Eyes

Nationality: American
Age: 72
Occupation: Retired Surgeon
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Performance Date: 4/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Main description:

AB: “What proverbs did you learn from your time working at different hospitals with different surgeons and doctors? I’m sure sayings like “Measure twice, cut once” crop up in surgery and in med school.”

JB: “Hm, yes, definitely. There’s all kinds of proverbs, but they’re just… so hard to remember. Oh, I’ve got one that I’ve repeated a few times myself. I must have been, oh, probably a fourth year resident a private hospital in England. I had a, um, abdomen dissection case with this surgeon. We, uh, we called him the King, because this kinda dissection is very very difficult. You’re operating in an area that you can’t see very well, and that has lots of very little, very fragile blood vessels. One wrong move there and you’re getting sued for malpractice. Anyways, he does this dissection without a hitch, and I was just amazed. I asked, how, how do that so well? He looks at me and he says, “Fingers have eyes.”

AB: “Fingers have eyes. What would say that means?”

JB: “Oh, I don’t know. Something like, just because you can’t see doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Fingers are pretty sensitive body parts, so if you know your anatomy well enough, you should know where you are and what you’re doing without being able to see it .”

AB: “And this is a saying you’ve repeated before?”

JB: “Oh, yes, many times. Residents are always very intimidated by these types of procedures, which is understandable of course. I always repeat this to my senior residents when they start struggling with abdomen dissections and other tricky ones.”

Informant’s interpretation:

AB: “Why have you kept and repeated this saying you heard from your mentor?”

JB: “Well, this guy was a really great surgeon. No one I trusted more than him for advice at that time. It’s a simple, elegant way of encouraging residents to trust themselves. But also be careful.”

Personal interpretation:

This proverb has primarily instructional purposes, applying to a difficult surgical technique. The proverb seems to spread at least in part because it reflects the informant’s respect for the man he heard it from.

Main Piece: “Just because there is a goalie in the net, does not mean that you can’t score a goal”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: CA
Performance Date: 04/20/2021
Primary Language: English

Background: This is a saying that the informant learned from her friends at summer camp when she was in grade school. She attended a co-ed summer camp and as a way to keep themselves entertained, the kids would have crushes and say they were dating just because they held hands on the way to the dining hall one night. Because they were at summer camp and playing sports, the kids would say this proverb as a way to indicate that even if your crush had was in a relationship with some else, it did not mean you were out of luck or didn’t have a shot. 

Context: the informant still uses this proverb in her 20s, but the intention behind the saying has changed. When at summer camp, the campers did not realize in their youth that ‘homewrecking’ is socially unacceptable. They saw were so immersed in the competitive culture of camp that a sports metaphor for the romantic and social elements of life there seemed fitting. Now, the informant uses this phrase as more of a mocking joke. She will say it to one of her friends if they see a cute guy, but he happens to be in a relationship. She does not expect her friend to take the saying seriously or act on the meaning. It is interesting how the significance of this proverb has shifted from adolescence to adulthood. At camp, the kids were genuinely encouraging fighting for their crush, even if it meant hurting someone else; now, we can tease our friends in the same context, but with different intentions.

Thoughts: I have heard this saying outside of the informant’s interview and I have always found it to be humorous and I suppose true, but not something to take seriously. What I find interesting about this proverb, in particular, is that it is dependent on interpretation. The person listening to this word of advice can either hear it as ridiculous and funny or they can take it to heart and cause issues. The impact that his proverb has left the listener as an amused audience member or a person who is about to really damage someone else’s relationship. It is very black and white how this saying is received and depends greatly on who is hearing it- as well as their age, sex, and willingness to take charge versus be passive.

Main Piece: “Work smarter, not harder”

Nationality: American
Age: 63
Occupation: Real Estate
Residence: CO
Performance Date: 04/26/2021
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant is devoted to his career. He has always had an entrepreneurial mindset and loves to succeed. Throughout his life, he has jumped on every career opportunity and worked as hard as necessary to feel fulfilled. That being said, in retrospect, he wishes that he had taken an alternative route to success. He assumed that the only way to reach his goals was to be the hardest worker in the room, but he sees now that there is a difference between working hard and working smart. 

Context: 

“I wish my dad had explained to me: Work smarter, not harder. That’s why I’m telling you this, once again, to really ingrain it in your mind. It’s something my father didn’t teach me, so I am gonna make sure you know it. There is no substitution for being a hard worker. Don’t get me wrong… drive, work ethic, commitment, you need those traits to get to the level of success I know you want. But, you also need to be efficient. Don’t waste energy. Optimize energy. Take the allocated time and make the most of it because you chose to work smart. It’s all about strategy. It is pointless to kill yourself over endless hours and sleepless nights. Just because you are torturing yourself through exhaustion doesn’t mean you are better than the next guy. It just means you aren’t being thoughtful. Every move you make as a professional should be purposeful and worthwhile, not done just for the sake of putting in the effort. We know you can work your ass off. You’ve done that throughout your entire academic career, and there is no one better at putting her head down and grinding. But, you need to show me- show yourself- that you can work intelligently. When you can do that, you can reach your goals, and take some time to enjoy that success. It’s a fault that I should have corrected long ago… I need to learn to relax and this is a way to get there.”  

Thoughts: This proverb from my dad is one that has really shifted the way I do work. He has given me this short lecture on the saying too many times to count because he believes in its power so passionately. The proverb is simple and short but definitely impacts the decisions I make on a daily basis. It is a phrase that I will share with my children, especially because my dad has put such emphasis on the fact that he wished he had known from his father that there is more than one route to success. 

The “Golden Rule”

Nationality: Vietnamese-American
Age: 10
Occupation: Elementary School Student
Residence: Iowa
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

B: The golden rule is like “treat others the way you want to be treated,” so that’s the golden rule.

Me: How did you first learn about it?

B: So basically, during soccer, this kid bumped into another kid, because he was trying to get the ball from him. But the other kid- who got bumped into- thought it was on purpose, and he thought the other kid was trying to hurt him or something- so he like- he thought it was on purpose so he tackled him. And then a teacher- she saw it so she came over and she said, “Don’t do that anymore,” and then after we went inside, the principal went to every classroom and said, “Treat others how you want to be treated. If you treat somebody good then they will treat you good back.” So that’s the whole story.

Background: 

My informant is my cousin’s 10-year-old son, who is in the fourth grade. He lives in a suburban neighborhood near Des Moines, which is the capital of Iowa. He goes to a public elementary school in his district, which is where this soccer incident happened. At the time, he was in the 1st grade, and the lesson from it still stays with him today. He tells me that believes in the golden rule, and has applied it in his own life to resolve issues between friends. He explains that every year, he and his friends have a nerf war that involved building forts. Each time, his friends would get into an argument about where and how to build the forts. He tells me that one year, he was tired of them fighting and told them the golden rule, which made them stop, and in his words, “hear each other out.”

Context:

This is a transcript of our conversation over the phone. Lately, he has been telling me stories about what goes on during school, though this conversation was prompted specifically for this collection project. I was curious about what he learned the “golden rule” to be.

Thoughts:

I remember learning about the “golden rule” when I was also in elementary school, though it came from another child on the playground. Often, it was said in an instance where someone was being mean to another person. Hence, it was used as a sort of chiding for bad behavior. It was interesting to find out that my cousin’s son understood and believed the rule to be “treat others how you want to be treated,” as it was relayed to him by teachers, and to also continue the lesson to his friends since another variation I learned from other students was “do unto others how they have done to you,” as a way of justifying revenge. Because the “golden rule” is so ubiquitous, the choice of what its definition is can be very telling of what principle or virtue is valued. In my cousin’s son’s case, kindness is most important.