Category Archives: Folk speech

Thanksgiving game

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/1/18
Primary Language: English

I asked, do you do anything specific with your family for holidays?:

Response:

“I have a really big family so Thanksgiving dinner is always 20 people or so. Every year at Thanksgiving dinner we each write down one “-ing” verb and one noun and put them all in two separate hats. Everyone picks one of each out of the hats and the combination of the two is your ‘Thanksgiving name’ with my grandfather acting as the chief.

When you pick your name you say it our loud and everyone else responds: ‘And the crowd says “ahhhhh”’

For example:

Person 1: I am… whispering three toed sloth

Family response: and the crowd says Ahhhh“

 

Background: Mae is a 19 year old girl raised in Westwood, CA and currently living in Los Angeles, CA. Her parents are originally from Chicago and Little Rock, and she lived in Princeton, NJ briefly as a young girl.

Context: Mae shared this story with me when she came to my house to celebrate Easter.

Analysis: Holiday traditions are incredibly personal to each family, and even people who celebrate the same holidays can have an entirely different way of doing so. My family, for example, doesn’t play any particular games like this at Thanksgiving, and our Thanksgiving dinner is usually one of our more formal holiday celebrations though it is always light-hearted and fun. Our Christmas dinner, as a matter of fact, is always extremely casual and we typically order Chinese food or have left overs, which you would think would be a more formal holiday. This further exemplifies how much variation there is in celebrations depending on specific family traditions. Similarly, however, my family always has Thanksgiving-themed hats that everyone receives on their place settings. It is really cool to hear what the unique ways that my friends celebrate different holidays with their families.

Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Manager
Residence: Calabasas, CA
Performance Date: 3/30/18
Primary Language: English

“You ever hear what happened to the two guys who stole a calendar? The both got 6 months”

 

Background: Justin is 23 years old and both raised in and currently residing in Calabasas, CA.

Context:Justin used this joke at Passover dinner.

Analysis: Jokes are a very subjective form of entertainment and rely completely on your audience. I never tell jokes, so I always enjoy when someone else knows a bunch off the top of their head. Justin told this joke at a large family dinner, which is, in my opinion, the perfect audience for a quick, witty joke such as the one told. I almost enjoy an audience’s reaction to joke-telling more than the actual joke itself on occasion, because the delivery and timing is so crucial for the joke to be accepted as hoped.

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

Nationality: United States
Age: 54
Occupation: Substitute Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/24/2018
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as LG. I am marked as DG.

 

LG: Oh, um, one saying is “a stitch in time saves nine.” There’s not much to say, I honestly think she just wanted us to get stuff done on time (laughs) you know like, get it done, now, instead of later. I heard it from my mom um who heard it from her mom. And both of them were really prompt, and my dad was more like (click noise).

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting on a patio in Glendora, CA. The sun is setting and a group of us are sitting around all sharing folklore. The proverb was used by the interviewee’s mother whenever her children or husband were late.

 

Background:

 

The interviewee is a 54-year-old mother of two, who is married. She grew up in Los Angeles, before moving around, and finally ending up back in Los Angeles. Her and her parents had a very tight-knit relationship, and she comes from a religious background. She has two siblings.

 

Analysis:

 

Proverbs tell us much about both the worldview of the country that the interviewee inhabits, and the family of the interviewee. In this case, the proverb is talking about how if you do something quickly, time will be saved later. In America, time is something that is highly valued. Americans tend to bustle about, trying to get everything done, and rarely taking time to enjoy it. In the interviewee’s family, time was also heavily valued. They were always early, and that’s something that LG also brought down to her children. This shows that proverbs can be more than just words, they can also carry down behavioral attitudes.

THE BUTTERY PROVERB

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/18/2018
Primary Language: English

The proverb:

“Ponte Mantequilla”

 

what this means to the person:

when you’re having a bad day make yourself feel like butter and don’t let anything bad stick on to you. just slip everything off.  My mom used to tell me this when kids would pick on me or when something bad happens. Just put on butter and let everything slip right off.  The informant mentioned that it helped her get through a rough day and also helped her not take things to personally when it came to hearing things from others about her. Signifies how she’s growing up because she used to tell her that when she was a kid and takes it a different ay than it means now

 

My analysis:

Getting from the context of how slippery butter is, I can see how the person interprets this proverb. I can also see how relevant it is to here in the US. We have a huge bully problem and many kids pick on each other. This proverb helps people not take everything and absorb it.  Butter is also used in many other folkloric manners like for remedies for burns and stomach pain in the Mexico.

 

 

 

Botellita de jerez Todo lo que digas sera al revez

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: San diego
Performance Date: 04/18/18
Primary Language: Spanish

Folk Metaphor

This saying was told by my grandmother  to me which has helped me throughout my life especially when people were being mean to me in school. In English it just means that everything that you say will be backwards so it will go back to you This meaning really helps you fight off those mean words that people tell you in school. You say this and everything that they say is basically going back to them and it really means that what they’re telling you is them telling themselves that.

Background

The significance of this metaphor to the informant was that no matter what people said , with this saying you can turn all the bad things on to them. it was like a magic Karma spell. It has a lot of meaning because it takes way the pain of being called names or being picked on.  The informant like sit because it rhymes and its unique .

Analysis

This is from Mexico and this saying is very  popularly and  this expression refers to everything you want for someone is going to return, or you’re going to return everything you said; or everything you say will be used against ..With this in mind, it is better not to wish anyone badly, or to say things that can be used against you.