Category Archives: Folk speech

DWAI — Don’t Worry About It

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 28
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Background on informant: Informant is a senior at USC, studying philosophy, politics and law. He is from New York City.

Informant: There’s this abbreviation I use with some of my friends. It’s DWAI and stands for “Don’t Worry About It.” My friend claims to have invented this abbreviation herself, and I’ve never heard it anywhere else so I totally believe her. She’s made up other types of acronyms like that so I totally believe it was originally her thought.

EXAMPLES:

“I haven’t really studied that much for this test but DWAI, I’m sure it will turn out OK.”

“Oh you spilled your drink on me. Just DWAI.”

It’s just sort of a fun saying to pepper your conversations with because it really rolls off the tongue because it’s a good life motto.

Analysis: This piece of folklore was especially interesting to me because I had heard the informant say it on many prior occasions and I noticed that I had started to spontaneously intersperse it in my own speech, from time to time. I think this folklore is really inventive but also very reflective of the culture. The informant noted that he and his friend like to use abbreviations and I think that is a larger trend in a generation that relies heavily on informal text communication. It is interesting then to see how that written form of communication is transferred to being folklore. The same perhaps could be said for other abbreviations, like IRL.

 

“Be tough about it”

Background on informant: Informant is a senior at USC, studying international relations. She is involved in many student organizations,

Informant: My father played soccer forever so he’s always tough about anything pain-related. He has a very high pain tolerance. Regardless, as a kid when there was anything wrong, he would say, “be tough about it.” That’s the phrase for everything. You get hurt, etc… He would hit you in the forehead in a joking way and that was a distraction from whatever thing it was. It could be literally anything if we were complaining. I say it to other people. Now it’s like a phrase.

Analysis: I found this piece of folklore to be compelling because it sheds light on how folklore is performed, taught, habituated to a certain extent and passed down. The informant, who does not have as high of pain tolerance as her father, is told again and again to tough it out when there is a problem and now it’s a folk saying that she reports performing when in the company of others. I also thought it was interesting that the informant has such a personal connection and personal associations, the way she talks about how her father interacts (jokingly hitting her forehead), for a phrase that is somewhat banal and self-evident. It suggests that this piece of folklore, in addition, to serving a person in social interactions is also personal and connects her to the person who first performed it for her.

When journeying in Russia…

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 29
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

Background on informant: Informant is a senior at USC, studying international relations. He is from the Bay Area and lived and studied in Russia for a year.

He told me about a proverb he heard from multiple people about how to prepare for a journey in Russia. He can’t remember exactly who he heard this from but said he heard it from multiple sources.

Transcript:

“Otpravlyayas v dalniy poot, vzya butilku ne zabud.”

In English: “When you’re going on a journey don’t forget to bring a bottle.”

Analysis: This proverb is interesting because it requires the receiver to have some working knowledge of the Russian culture and perhaps stereotypes to understand that when they mean “bottle,” they don’t mean bottle of water but a bottle of alcohol. At first, I even thought it could have two meanings, depending on the audience, but the informant, who said he might not have been sober when he first heard it, said that it is specifically talking about a bottle of alcohol. It’s not the most weighty proverb in the world, perhaps, but it is definitely a proverb that would tell you something about the culture, its stereotypes, and the person delivering the proverb.

Be the Pebble

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 21, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant is a Junior at USC majoring in Choral music.  He is from Santa Cruz California and says that he loves using proverbs in his every day life.

 

“Be the pebble, let the water wash over you.  Don’t be the boulder”.

 

The informant first heard this proverb from his parents and said that he uses it frequently.

Analysis:

This proverb was collected in a natural performance.  The informant said this proverb to me when I was complaining about how stressed I was.  For him, it is advice to someone who is stressed, telling them to let it go and not let things worry them.  For the informant it also means that if you worry about things, it just makes everything worse.

This proverb’s use of the imagery of flowing water to symbolize letting things go, living life and not worrying has similarities to phrases such as “go with the flow” and saying something is “water under the bridge”.  Differently from these other phrases, this collected proverb also incorporates the idea that the water of life, so to say, will “wash” over you.  The use of this word implies that the process of struggle is a cleansing one from which people emerge smoother and better, much like the pebbles along beaches or in stream beds are polished by the flow of the water.

This proverb could also be used to advise someone to not stand in opposition to the way things are going, although when the informant used this proverb it did not have this meaning.  Boulders stand against the water and as a result are broken down.  In this aspect, this proverbs holds close ties to the proverb “go with the flow”, as both use water imagery to give advice against combating the current situation and letting things happen as they will.

Gray hair

Nationality: American
Age: 26
Occupation: Student/Opera Singer
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 23, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant is a graduate student studying Vocal Arts/Opera at USC.  She is originally from New York City and just recently moved to Los Angeles.

“If you pluck a gray hair, three will grow back in its place.”

The informant first heard this proverb in New York City and says that, while living there, she heard it a lot.  She shared this proverb when one of our mutual friends was complaining about her gray hairs and wondering whether she should pull them out or not.  After sharing this proverb, several other of our friends (from various parts of the country) chimed in saying that it was bad to pull out gray hairs.  Perhaps this proverb has turned into a folk belief or vice versa.  More information would be necessary to determine this.

Analysis:

This proverb could mean several things: 1. Embrace your grayness, growing old isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  2. If you worry about getting old, you are worrying about things you have no control over instead of living your life 3. A warning against vanity  4. (best interpretation, in my opinion) Worrying about gray hairs causes you stress, connecting this proverb to the folk belief that stress causes gray hairs, therefore worrying about (ie. plucking) your gray hairs will cause more gray hairs to grow