Category Archives: Folk speech

Spanish Proverbs

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 76
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Phoenix, Az
Performance Date: March 15, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant’s mother is from northern Mexico, specifically Sonora. She came to America during the Mexican revolution when she was very young (~1910).  She lived in the territory of Arisona before it became a state. The informant was raised in Arizona, but brought up bilingual. Her mother would speak spanish to her and her siblings because she did not want to kids to lose it.

The informant told me 3 Spanish proverbs that her mother used to say to the kids growing up.

1. “No hay mal que por bien no venga”

Translates roughly to “something good comes out of everything”

Context via informant: Let’s say something went wrong… you didn’t get something you wanted. Mom would say that meaning that something good will still come out of it.

Interpretation: This proverb exhibits a mindset focused on always looking at bright side.  It warns people against getting upset over things not always going their way, but instead believing that something better is on the way.

2. “Entre menos guros mas elotes”

Translates roughly to “The fewer the people who want something, the bigger your share is going to be.”

Context via informant: Mom used this proverb whenever somebody doesn’t want something (typically food).

Interpretation: The English equivalent for this proverb would be saying “more for me” after someone declines food or some object. It emphasizes that nothing will go to waste, and at times can make one feel guilty for not wanting what is so graciously given to him.  Someone else will make use of what you do not want. The food/thing in front of you is not worthless even if you do not want it.

3. “El diablo sabe mas por viejo que por diable”

Translates roughly to “The devil knows more because he is not rather than because he is the devil”

Context via informant: “Mom said this ALL the time. The idea is that experience mattered more than anything. If you’re the daughter and she’s the mom, you’ll never know more because she’s older. You can never catch up.  It was very discouraging.”

Interpretation: It makes sense that a parent would frequently say this proverb because parents will always be older than their children, meaning they will always be wiser. Older people know more, and they always will, because they will always be older than you.  It is emphasizes respect and reverence of elders. You should never stop respecting or listening to people older than you because they will always be wiser.

Danish Tounge-Twister

Nationality: Danish, Persian, American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, Il
Performance Date: April 25, 2015
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 19 year old male whose mother is Persian and father is Danish. He is not fluent in Danish, but knows little bits and pieces. He told me about a series of tongue twisters that he learned growing up.  His cousins would tease him with these tongue twisters because Danish is one of the hardest languages to pronounce.  Here is one of the ones he best remembers.

Danish: Fem flade flødeboller på et fladt flødebollefad

Translation: Five flat cream puffs on a flat cream puff plate

Analysis: This would be the equivalent to something like “Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore. But if Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore then where are the sea shells Sally sells?”  Because Danish is such a difficult language to learn, tongue twisters such as these are something that Danish people can take pride in knowing how to say.  I cannot even figure out the phonetic pronunciation of that tongue twister.  The translation is not particularly important, though, considering the point of the phrase is not to be thought-provoking but to be hard to say.  There are tongue twisters like these in almost every language, so it is a widespread practice and fun thing for all different people to participate in.

The Fighting Game Scrub

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/15
Primary Language: English

The competitive gaming community is the large community of people who play competitive games. This usually means that they either play MOBA (multilayer online battle arena) or fighting games online against other players. While this community has no physical location, they communicate and form their culture through online message boards and forums. Due to these forums, the competitive gaming community is able to foster a culture and communicate with one another without actually being in the same physical place. Some notable competitive gaming websites are Smashboards.com, Nadota.com, Joindota.com and Gosugamers.com. The fighting game community is a subculture of the larger competitive gaming community.

The word “scrub” has a very unique and specific meaning in the fighting game community. The definition is a variation of the word’s meaning of a person of insignificant size or standing. It is commonly used as an insult and as a way of placing someone below the speaker. However in the Fighting Game Community, which includes all people who socially play “fighting games” such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and BlazBlue online, the word has much more specific definition. In this community, a “scrub” is who frequently loses matches (in the game of their choice) and instead of practicing to get better they take to the forum and complain about the game. In this community, a scrub is not just someone who is below you, but it is also someone who is unwilling to improve himself. This has lead to many commonly used phrases such as “get good scrub” to try and emphasise that the problem with the scrub isn’t his lack of ability but rather is his lack of improvement.

The Informant that I interviewed is a somewhat successful member of the Fighting Game Community and is well known on the forums for the games BlazBlue and Mortal Kombat. He in the past has been on the leader-boards of many of these games and is familiar with this community both through the online forums and the in-person events often hosted for these games. Throughout his years in this community, he has both been a “scrub” and an experienced player who tells “scrubs” to get better at the game. He admitted that the use of the word if “often derogatory and the more bad mannered things you can say to a competitor,” however he also revealed that “almost everyone uses the word frequently, both while playing and on the online forums.” When asked about the origin of this use of the term the admitted that he did not know where it originated, but that “it is very universal across all fighting game communities” and that “[he] [has] never been a part of an online fighting game community that did not use the expression.” Because this use of the term is so widespread and accepted, it is safe to assume that it has been accepted by the larger fighting game culture for quite some time now.

However, despite the origin, what is truly interesting about this term is what it specifically means. Unlike the original use of the word scrub, the fighting game’s variant of this work places heavy emphasis on the scrub’s unwillingness to practice and get better. This illustrates that in this community hard work and dedication are very desirable traits. The informant made it very clear that the worst part about “scrubs is their willingness to complain about how the game is broken before actually trying to get better at the game.” It would seem that in this community, which is highly competitive, the worst thing you can be is non-competitive. As such, the word “scrub” isn’t an insult because it implies that someone is bad, but rather it is an insult because it implies that someone is non-competitive.

Inflection based folk speech

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/15
Primary Language: English

At the start of last year, the informant’s roommate came back from his hometown with a unique speech pattern the informant had not heard up until that point. According to the informant, his roommate picked it up from his friends in Peachtree City, Georgia, but the exact origin or cause of this speech pattern was unknown to him.

This speech is interesting in that it has absolutely nothing to do with the content of what the speaker is literally saying. Rather than emphasize the words said, when speaking in this way you emphasize the cadence or inflection of your sentence. Depending on what part of the sentence the speaker emphasizes, the sentence can have many different and specific meanings. The informant told me that “when we inflect the beginning of a sentence heavily it lets us know that we can disregard anything that is said after the first few words. This essentially allows us to say whatever we feel like while still communicating what we need to communicate. It allows us to show the essence of what we are trying to say without worrying about the details. For example if I were to say Don’t go over there I’m trilling out, my friends would not try to understand what ‘I’m trilling out’ means but would rather just accept not go go over there.” He went on to say that in a sense, using inflection over content allows him to be free in his speech while still being understood by his peers.

He went on to explain different meanings that the inflection point of the sentence can have. For example by inflecting the last phrase of a sentence, it lets his friends know that he is making a self-aware joke about himself and not to take anything in the sentence literally. He expressed that because of his groups often random sense of humor that this use of their speech is critical as it instantly and definitively clears any confusion as to whether what was said is a joke or not.

As far as popularity of this speech pattern, my informant told me that “while [their folk speech] is not universal among college students, it is used somewhat frequently by members of the film school here and by members of the Peachtree City Community… assuming what [his roommate] told us is true.” At the very least he made it clear that his group of friends and acquaintances use this inflection based speech frequently. This is very interesting because the inflection based dialog, coupled with the fact that it can be (and was revealed to often be) used alongside humor suggests that the sense of humor among this group is at times so hard to follow that even the members themselves had to develop a new speech pattern to signify when something is or is not a joke. I have attached sound clips of these two types of inflections.

Feeling Salty

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/15
Primary Language: English

The competitive gaming community is the large community of people who play competitive games. This usually means that they either play MOBA (multilayer online battle arena) or fighting games online against other players. While this community has no physical location, they communicate and form their culture through online message boards and forums. Due to these forums, the competitive gaming community is able to foster a culture and communicate with one another without actually being in the same physical place. Some notable competitive gaming websites are Smashboards.com, Nadota.com, Joindota.com and Gosugamers.com.

In the competitive game community people often play against each other to compete and determine who is the better player. While this happens frequently at the larger level in the form of gaming tournaments it also happens in smaller groups of people who simply get together to play their game of choice for fun. While there does not have to be money on the line, all of these games foster a competitiveness that is integral to the experience. Because of this, players at any level often get very frustrated when the are not performing as well as they feel they should. However, losing in such a way is not solely a personal disappointment. My informant is a avid competitive game player and has been in this community for quite some time now. On this topic he said that “when you lose a match, especially one you feel like you should have won, it is impossible to hide it. Because of this the people you know and the people watching will always heckle you when you lose to someone much worse than you. When you see someone you know lose like this, you are almost obligated to call the losing player ‘salty’. This means that they are angry or frustrated with their performance.” He went on to talk about the various salt based phrases people will use to heckle the losing player or team. For example, he said that it was common to say “the salt is real” or “oh what delicious salt” when someone you particularly dislike loses in an embarrassing fashion. On the topic of the origin, he stated that he did not know where it comes from but he did know that the word “salt” was a reference to the salt in the losing player’s tears.

This is referenced in VGBootcamp’s “Salty Suite” which is a series of Super Smash Melee (a fighting game) matches where opponents who historically dislike losing to each other play a best of five to determine who is the better player and who is “just salty.”

 

This is very interesting as it is used to heckle friends and enemies alike. In this community, no matter your allegiance to the losing player, you are expected to call them out in this specific way after an embarrassing loss. This is likely used as a way to express that you are aware that they messed up or played poorly without having to specifically say what went wrong. By simply saying “I can feel the salt” or something along those lines you can heckle without getting too personal or offensive.