Informant: An elderly man told my mom when she was young
Original Script: “because you are left-handed you owed the devil as days work”
Background: This is a old belief that if someone is left handed they are on the devil’s side because of the phrase ‘the right hand of God’. The right hand was perceived as good and holy, while the left hand is perceived as evil and hateful.
Informant: My mom was told by her grandmother
Original Script: ” Pregnant women, should never talk about someone else’s kids because your kid will look just like them”
Background: The proverb is saying to never call someone’s child ugly because your child will look just like the child you talked about.
Thoughts: This old saying is just to warn women not to have a nasty attitude.
Informant: My grandmother who lived in Indiana and her father told her this
Original Script: “Only eat seafood in the months that have an ‘r’ in them and don’t eat seafood in the months that don’t have an ‘r’ in them.”
Background:The months that don’t have an ‘r’ in them the weather is hot so the water is not good and the months that do have an ‘r’ the weather is cooler so the water is good to eat fish.
Thoughts: I thought this was kind of silly, I believe its just an old saying to warn you about seafood because they didn’t have to technology to know when fish is contaminated.
Informant: My friend whose mom would tell her this.
Original Script: “you got caviar dreams and tuna fish money”
Background: This proverb means that a person has expensive taste, in my friends case likes expensive clothing but she didn’t have expensive clothing money.
Thoughts: This proverb was very comical, it matched up with the American lifestyle we live, everyone wants the next new expensive product but, no one as the money to buy it.
Informant:
Reid is originally from Memphis, Tennessee, but moved to Los Angeles right before he started high school.
Original Script:
Reid: “In the South, one thing that people would say there but I have never heard anyone say here is the phrase ‘I just hugged her/his neck.'”
Context:
To “hug someone’s neck” means to either say bye to someone or to say hello to someone.
My Thoughts:
When he said the phrase, I initially thought it had some sort of sexual connotation, for hugging or kissing a neck usually has some sort of sensual anterior meaning. It always blows my mind when I hear something that comes from a different part of the United States that I do not understand, for I often forget that there are so many different cultures within the umbrella of the American culture.