Category Archives: Folk speech

The UCLA Cheer

Nationality: American
Age: 77
Occupation: retired dentist and underwater photographer
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English

Informant found this carved into a desk in the medical library at UCLA in 1967, and shared it with his fellow students.  They would often chant it together during difficult exercises, like dissection.  Informant recognizes that it was a way of cementing in-group identity, establishing solidarity and masculinity (particularly through some of the more homophobic and misogynistic wording), and when dissecting corpses, pushing away thoughts of mortality with something coarse and crass.  Also, since most of his fellow students were young men living at home, informant suspects that such liberal use of profanity helped him and his fellow students to feel more adult.

Informant, now 77 and retired, still uses this cheer when doing something difficult or complicated, or when looking for his glasses.

Informant:

So you use this however you want.  I used it a lot in the dissection lab, you know, because the corpses didn’t bitch about it.  I did it in a whatchacallit, female monks, in a convent, when I was putting together a wedding cake for my dental assistant.  The nuns were furious.  You ready?

Interviewer: Ready.

Informant:

Okay.

Ahem.  It doesn’t work if you’re quiet about it, though.

Cocksucker, motherfucker, eat a bag of shit!

Douchebag dicklicker bite yer mother’s tit!

We’re the very best and all the others suck.

UCLA, UCLA, rah rah fuck!

 

Italian Proverb

Nationality: Italian
Age: 26
Occupation: Student
Residence: Italy
Performance Date: 01/27/2017
Primary Language: Italian

Original Script: Nel vino c’è la verità

Translation: In the wine there is truth

Background information: I was in the study abroad program in Italy last year. When I stayed in Italy, I realized how wine has always been an important element of the Italian culture, deeply rooted in the history and the land.

Thoughts about the piece: This proverb indicates how wine helps us reveal our inner thoughts and feelings that we would otherwise keep to ourselves if we were sober.

Italian Proverb

Nationality: Italian
Age: 26
Occupation: Student
Residence: Italian
Performance Date: 01/27/2017
Primary Language: Italian

Original Script: Nella botte piccola c’è il vino buono

Translation: In the small barrel, there is the good wine.

Background information: This Italian proverb refers to the fact that the finest wine is usually produced in limited quantities. It’s in contrast to the thought that “big” necessarily means “better,” suggesting that the concept of quality often doesn’t coincide with that of quantity.

Thoughts about the piece: Like lots of provers in Italy are related to wine, this one uses wine as a metaphor to talk about people and things in general.

Portuguese Proverb

Nationality: Portuguese
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: Lisbon
Performance Date: 03/21/2017
Primary Language: English

Original Script: Quem não tem cão, caça com gato.

Translation: those who don’t have a dog, hunt with a cat.

Background information: the original proverb is “caça como gato”, which means “hunts like a cat.” Dogs help people during hunting,  but cats are always alone. The original meaning of the proverb is that when you want to do something but cannot find a companion, you should go doing it alone. Now the meaning of the proverb changed slightly and it used to indicate that when you cannot find the necessary means to do what you need, you should try to find other means.

Thoughts about the piece: cats always give people the impression of lonely and independent.

 

Italian Proverb

Nationality: Italian
Age: 43
Occupation: Professor
Residence: California
Performance Date: 04/20/2017
Primary Language: English

Original Script: La Befana vien di notte, con le scarpe tutte rotte

Translation: La Befana comes in the night, with her broken shoes.

Background information: Le Befana is an old, white-haired, wrinkly woman. She would come to only good kids on January 6th, leaving them candies and chocolates. And she would leave bad kids with charcoal in empty socks.

Thoughts about the piece: the story of La Befana is similar to Santa Claus.