Category Archives: Folk speech

Touch Wood

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Physician
Residence: River Forest, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/16/2016
Primary Language: English

Background: E.N. is a 58-year-old obstetrician gynecologist who was born in Boston, Massachusetts to two attorney parents. She stumbled upon medicine in college as a psychology major when she took a biology class and became aware that she had an affinity for science. E.N. currently practices full time in the Chicagoland area delivering babies and performing gynecological surgery.

 

Main piece: As a surgeon, whenever we do GYNe surgeries in the operating room, I find that all obstetricians gynecologists are pretty superstitious. So after we complete a surgery, we never REALLY complement ourselves and say “that went really well” because that would jinx us, so we always just say, if we DO say anything about how the surgery goes, we have to always add touchwood at the end so, “that surgery went pretty well touch wood,” because we know we’re really not out of the woods for at least 48 hours.

 

Q: Why do you do this?

 

E.N.: I do this as a safeguard against something bad happening.  It’s more of a superstition.

 

Q: Who did you learn it from?

 

E.N.: Have no idea who I learned it from – likely my parents.

 

Performance Context: Gynecological surgeons would perform this after they had completed a surgery.

 

My Thoughts: Medicine and superstitions tie into each other. Though medicine is not typically based on luck and is more based on hard science, I think it is interesting that the phrase “touch wood” is still used. It is used as a preventative measure: it is sometimes believed that if something is said, then it won’t happen. In this scenario, if a doctor explicitly says a surgery went well, it is believed by some that the surgery will not have positive results in the end. Saying “touch wood” is a preventative measure to make sure that what has been said continues to hold true.

Delivering a Baby Using a Vacuum

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Physician
Residence: River Forest, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/16/2016
Primary Language: English

Background: E.N. is a 58-year-old obstetrician gynecologist who was born in Boston, Massachusetts to two attorney parents. She stumbled upon medicine in college as a psychology major when she took a biology class and became aware that she had an affinity for science. E.N. currently practices full time in the Chicagoland area delivering babies and performing gynecological surgery.

 

Main piece: So when I deliver a baby and we get towards the end of the labor and she’s about to deliver, sometimes I will have to think about assisting the patient with delivery with an instrument called a vacuum. So if the fetal heart tones are down or the mom can’t push or is running out of steam or something like that, I will take the vacuum out and put it on the side of the delivery table and I will say out loud “I’m putting this here to ward off evil spirits.” Which I suppose is kind of silly but we’re also superstitious that if we feel we can take this out and put it on the side and the patient actually won’t ever need it but we have it just in case she does need it.

 

Q: Do you say this phrase out loud?

 

E.N.: Yes – absolutely. Out loud so EVERYONE in the room can hear it.

 

Performance Context: E.N. would do this when she feels that there is a possible chance that she would have to use the vacuum to help with the delivery of the baby.

 

My Thoughts: I think it is interesting how medicine and superstitions tie into each other, though in the western world and in western medicine, superstitions are frowned upon as they are not always based in actual fact. Though medicine is not typically based on luck or on the speaking of certain things, I think it is curious that superstition and what you say is believed to help in some western medical scenarios, even by the doctors thoroughly trained in western medicine.

O Que É, O Que É?

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 45
Occupation: Business Administrator
Residence: Brazil
Performance Date: April 26, 2016
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: English, Spanish

Informant was a 45 year old female who was born in Brazil and currently lives in Brazil. I talked to her over Skype.

Informant: So this is a game of riddle. It’s like a riddle, but it’s also a game. It’s called “O que é o que é,” which is “What is it What is it.” You come up with the riddles at school with friends. It’s something that you need to make people think and have fun. It’s our popular culture. It’s very used with kids, kids play with that a lot. You give clues to what a thing is by describing it, and then the other people have to guess what it is.

Collector: Can you maybe give me an example?

Informant: Ok, for example

O que é o que é

It is deaf and mute but tells everything?

Collector: I don’t know.

Informant: A book. (Laughs)

O que é o que é

That is always broken when it’s spoken?

Collector: Promises?

Informant: Secrets, but close. Last one,

O que é o que é

Is extremely thin, has teeth, but never eats, and even without having money gives food to whoever is hungry?

Collector: What?

Informant: The fork. These are just some examples. I remember a lot of them because they were a really big part of my childhood.

Collector: Why do you like this particular piece of folklore?

Informant: I like it because we used to have a lot of fun we used to play with it all the time, everyone used to have one of these riddles and we used to play all the time, it makes you think and it’s funny. Everytime we were with friends and we were talking or even with family we used to play, but mainly with friends, we used to read books about this to tell friends. It’s just a happy time, we used to play a lot and it was funny.

I remember hearing these riddles when I was a kid. Every time I would go on a road trip, my parents would say these riddles to me about things that would pass by our windows, and it was a fun way to pass the time. It’s really cool to learn that this was also a part of my mother’s childhood, and that she would often play this riddle game with her friends – something I never did. Although it’s mostly a children’s thing, any Brazilian will recognize the famous phrase “o que é o que é” as a riddle. A lot of the riddles are actually quite silly, such as the ones that my mother told me, but it is because they are so silly that they make people laugh.

Trapped in a Room (Riddle)

My informant is Natalie Aroeste. Natalie is a 19-year-old female student at USC. She is half-Mexican, half-white, speaks fluent Spanish and English and grew up in San Diego.

 

Natalie: “So you are in a room with no windows and no doors, all that’s there is a piano and a mirror, how do you get out?”

Umm I’m not sure you teleport?

Natalie: “No. you’re not going to get it it doesn’t make sense”

Ok then tell me how do you get out?

Natalie: “To get out you look in the mirror, you see what you saw, you take the saw, you cut the piano in half, two halves make a whole, and you climb out the hole, I know it’s dumb”

Where did you first hear this riddle?

Natalie: “Just when I was younger from a friend, we used to think it was the funniest thing, probably around ten years-old”

Was this a well known riddle?

Natalie: “No no one I told knew it”

Is there any meaning to this riddle for you?

Natalie: “No it’s just a riddle but it makes me think of all the dumb stuff I thought was hilarious when I was younger”

To be honest I wasn’t sure whether to make this a riddle or a joke. Its posed in the form of a riddle where a problem is prompted and you have to figure out how to solve it. In this case there is a problem but the solution is a play on words more than a real answer. It’s funny but also frustrates those who spend time trying to solve

The Hung Man (Riddle)

My informant is Natalie. Natalie is a 19-year-old female student at USC. She is half-Mexican, half-white, speaks fluent Spanish and English and grew up in San Diego.

 

Natalie: “There was a man who was found dead in a room. He had hung himself from the ceiling but all that was in the room was the rope, the dead man, and a puddle of water on the floor. How did the man kill himself?”

I don’t know, how?

Natalie: “The answer is that the men used a block of ice to reach the ceiling and tie the noose and when the ice melted he was left hanging there to die”

Where did you hear this riddle?

Natalie: “I heard this one on a field trip. We were hiking and the guide knew a bunch but that’s just one of the ones I remember”

Does this riddle mean anything to you?

Natalie: “It’s just a riddle I guess it just reminds me of that trip”

 

When dealing with riddles as folklore, we are dealing with a form that most would never consider folklore and do not pay attention to it being a performance that they are sharing. Riddles are especially good for folklore as well because the language can change so much but in the end the answer has to be the same. However, with riddles it is also precision of language that is sometimes most important for the riddle to make sense. In this case it was just a riddle that you had to think about to solve. It was just a fun one to get your mind thinking and to Natalie it is just a regular riddle however one that reminds her of the past like so much other folklore does.