Category Archives: Folk speech

Red sun in the morning, sailor take warning.

Nationality: American
Occupation: captain of the Miss Christi
Residence: Two Harbors, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/15
Primary Language: English

“You know the whole like ‘Red sun in the morning, sailor take warning.’ or some shit like that. I don’t believe that. Look at, look at the uh forecast. That’s usually the most accurate is what’s going to happen.

 

The informant is one of the captains of the Miss Christi, the boat that ferries people to the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina island. He came to the island a couple of years after graduating from high school in San Diego. He worked at the general store in Two Harbors, then as a housekeeper at WIES. Twelve years later he became a captain. Originally, he wanted to study marine biology, but fell in love with the island when he came there and has never looked back. He still enjoys marine studies, and he is a certified scientific scuba diver. He has loved the water his whole life, but did not start boating until he came to Catalina. An avid spear fisherman, he has a lot of contact with the other fishers on the island, and many of his friends are involved in sea life in some way.

 

The informant was asked if there were any common sayings of seamen that he was familiar with. He has heard this folklore from his fishermen friends and people whose family has had the ocean for their trade for generations.

 

Though the informant does not believe in these sayings, he still remembers them and knows many sailors who do believe in them. If the sky is red in the morning, then there is a higher chance of storms or just bad luck for sailors. this may have something to do with the sun reflecting off clouds in the east, and as storms move east to west, then there is a chance of storms passing over the ship. Red sky at night, on the contrary, is perfectly okay as that means the storm has already passed the ship.

Sailors, boaters, and fishermen are notoriously superstitious. Most groups who are the most superstitious are those who have a trade that is heavily reliant on nature. Farmers are one example, as the success of their crops relies on variability in the weather. Seamen, similarly, rely on currents, winds, and weather to take them from place to place. All it takes is one storm, and their ship could sink. Because they have so little control over their trade, they attempt to create good luck through superstitions. Things become associated with good or bad luck, and all sailors must follow these superstitions for fear that their boat will sink. Red skies in the morning represent bad luck.

With modern technology, boaters can rely on radar and weather forecasting to determine if there is dangerous weather that day. The informant is one such, who feels he does not need to look at the color of the sky in the morning to determine if he will survive the day. There are others, though, who use both. They will look at forecasts and use that for the majority of their weather knowledge. If the sky is red in the morning, however, they are much less likely to risk the ocean regardless of what the weatherman says. Science and superstition can exist in the same belief system.

No women on boats

Nationality: American
Occupation: captain of the Miss Christi
Residence: Two Harbors, CA
Performance Date: 4/19/15
Primary Language: English

“Women in boats are bad luck. I’m sure you’ve heard that. [The reason:]Just distract sailors, yeah, because there’s always something that goes on and someone falls in love and love triangles or… Nothing against women, that’s just… Tempers flare very quickly. Um, ‘It’s not gay if you’re under way.’ Hahaha. ‘It’s only queer if you can see the pier.'”

 

The informant is one of the captains of the Miss Christi, the boat that ferries people to the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina island. He came to the island a couple of years after graduating from high school in San Diego. He worked at the general store in Two Harbors, then as a housekeeper at WIES. Twelve years later he became a captain. Originally, he wanted to study marine biology, but fell in love with the island when he came there and has never looked back. He still enjoys marine studies, and he is a certified scientific scuba diver. He has loved the water his whole life, but did not start boating until he came to Catalina. An avid spear fisherman, he has a lot of contact with the other fishers on the island, and many of his friends are involved in sea life in some way.

 

The informant was asked if he knew any superstitions of mariners, what is good luck or bad luck for a ship. He had heard of this folklore from his friends, who are boaters and fishermen.

 

Women not being permitted on boats is probably the most well-known seafarer superstition. Many boaters who are going on long trips out to sea consider it horrible luck to have a female on board. This belief has continued to present day: women were not allowed on submarines until a few years ago. This belief has also made its way into popular culture. It is often a part of any pirates or sailor movies, like in Pirates of the Caribbean and the fear the dress creates for the ship. This superstition is incredibly well-spread, if not fully followed.

There are some good reasons for this belief. Most sailors are just men like any other and are prone to falling in love or lusting after members of the opposite sex. If more than one man develops feelings for the same woman, then things can get ugly fast. As the informant says, love triangles can form, and feelings can get hurt—and unlike normal love triangles, there is no hope to avoid the other members of it as all are stuck on the same ship for months or maybe years at a time. Because the working of a ship requires such steadfast teamwork between sailors, any hard feelings between team members can put the entire ship at risk. This guideline of not having women on ships to complicate things soon progressed to women bringing bad luck to the ship.

Sailors, boaters, and fishermen are notoriously superstitious. Most groups who are the most superstitious are those who have a trade that is heavily reliant on nature. Farmers are one example, as the success of their crops relies on variability in the weather. Seamen, similarly, rely on currents, winds, and weather to take them from place to place. All it takes is one storm, and their ship could sink. Because they have so little control over their trade, they attempt to create good luck through superstitions. Things become associated with good or bad luck, and all sailors must follow these superstitions for fear that their boat will sink. Women is one such source of bad luck.

Men do get lonely after a long time away from wives and women company, so men have been known to turn to their fellow sailors for company. They may also prefer male company in the first place. On land, any male-male relationships would not have been acceptable even 20 years ago, but out to sea, with little societal constraints, then men could have relationships with each other and not be shamed the same way they would on the mainland. Seafarers even have sayings about this, as the informant shares, that prove this is not an uncommon occurrence.

Ballroom dance should be awkward

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: PhD student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/10/15
Primary Language: English

“In ballroom dancing, especially in the Smooth category, there is uh, mostly for Foxtrot, but with Latin too, there is this that, if you are doing something, uh, and it feels weird, there is this idea that it should be hard, and it should be, like, difficult to make your body do it. That’s what Lorena tells me, since that’s what a lot of other people tell us, too, but Blue, who was back on the team before, he had a different approach, which is not the standard approach, which is that if you are doing something, it should be easier, that you do something right in ballroom dancing by doing it the easier way, which makes more sense to me, and it seems to hold true. I believe that’s how you look at it, but there is this systemic notion that doing things the hard way or in the way that is the awkward way is the correct way.”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of Southern California, studying linguistics. He is also a member—and next year’s president—of the University of Southern California’s Ballroom and Latin Dance Team. He specializes in the American Smooth dances (Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Foxtrot), though also knows the International Latin dances and many social dances, like Hustle and Salsa. He has been in the USC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team for 2 years, and did ballroom dance at the University of Michigan for 2 years. He competes in the Silver and Gold level Smooth dances, and has placed highly in numerous competitions.

 

The folklore was collected by asking the informant what some of the general customs or ideas of ballroom dancing are, that are not universally taught or understood. This custom he speaks of is often spoken of, or left as an unspoken understanding, throughout the ballroom dancing world.

 

In the paragraph above, the informant mentions Lorena. Lorena is one of the two coaches and teachers for the USC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team. The informant takes classes with both with the club and privately along with his dance partner. She has been dancing ballroom for ten years, and is a professional ballroom dancer and instructor. Blue is the name of a previous member of the dance team, who was an amazing ballroom dancer and now competes at the amateur level. He had danced for 5 years before leaving the club the previous year.

 

Competitive ballroom dance, like the American Smooth category that the informant competes in, is not a folk dance, as there are specific standards for it, and a syllabus of acceptable moves for each level of competition, and the competitions themselves are judged and organized based on official regulations. There are, however, many aspects of ballroom dance culture that can be considered folklore, as it is stuff one learns from other dances, without being official rules or concepts, and this culture can change and adapt itself to each person.

The folklore the informant speaks of is a common concept of ballroom dance: in order to be considered an amazing dancer, it is necessary to be uncomfortable. Ballroom dance requires a lot of awkward positions that are unnatural to do, and can be quite hard to accomplish. This includes the left-side lead of the body, the head tilt, and even the steps—forward steps in Smooth are meant to feel like one is falling forward without correcting for balance, for example. The dance frame, in particular, is exceedingly “uncomfortable” and difficult to maintain.

This discomfort is felt, and even encouraged, by many ballroom dancers. There is a saying that “if you feel uncomfortable, then you are doing it right.” This is what the informant has heard from Lorena, his instructor, and many other ballroom dancers.

What Blue argues takes this concept a step further, and there are those that agree with him, like the informant. Blue believes that although the position and steps feel uncomfortable compared to normal body motions, when done perfectly, they should also feel right. When you have a perfect position, and perfect footwork, dancing should be easier. It should be easier to lead what steps to do, and easier to follow your partner when you are in this “uncomfortable” state. This is also an understanding of many ballroom dancers that some believe and teach, though each dancer has his or her own way of looking at it.

Holy Innocents Day

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 25
Occupation: PhD student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/15
Primary Language: Spanish

“En Latinoamérica, diciembre 28th es también conocido como el día de los “Santos Inocentes,” el día en el que niños inocentes murieron de acuerdo con la religión Cristiana. Se acostumbra en mi familia hacer una broma en este día en particular. La broma consiste en pedir algo prestado, y si el que pide prestado dice la siguiente frase:

“Inocente palomita, que te has dejado engañar, sabiendo que en este día nada se debe prestar”

….entonces, la posesión del objeto prestado pasa a ser suyo. (La seriedad de esta broma depende de cada miembro de mi familia.)

Ejemplo: (Suponga que hoy es diciembre 28)

-¡Hola hermana! ¿Puedo mover tu carro para poder jugar en el estacionamiento?

-Claro

-Mmmm… ¿Entonces me prestas tu carro?

-Si

-¡Caíste! ¡Inocente palomita!

-¡Ay! ¡Olvidé que hoy es día de los inocentes!

-Así es, y ahora tu carro es mío. Voy a tomar las llaves de mi nuevo carro.

-¡No! ¡Dame mis llaves! ¡Yaaaa!”

 

“In Hispanic America, December 28th is known as “Holy Innocents” day, the day where innocent children died according to the Christianity. It’s common among my family to play a particular prank during this day. This prank consists of borrowing a special item from a lender and if the borrower says the following saying,

“Naïve little dove, that has let yourself be fooled by me, knowing that today nothing has to be lent”

…then, the ownership of the item is supposedly transferred to the borrower. (The seriousness of this joke depends on the members of my family.)

Example, (Suppose that it’s December 28th)

-Hey Sis! Can I move your car so I can play in the garage?

-Sure

-Hmmm… can I borrow your car then?

-Yes

-Gotcha! “Naïve little dove!”

-Oh no! I forgot today is “Holy Innocents” day!

-Yes! Now your car is mine! And I will proceed to take the keys of my new car.

-No! Give me my keys! Stop it!”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of California, studying Electrical Engineering. He is from Mexico City, Mexico, where he was born and lived most of his life. His native tongue is Spanish, but he is fluent in English, as well. He got his undergraduate degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which he graduated from in 2012. He enjoys ballroom dancing in his free time.

 

The informant was asked to send the collector a description of a holiday celebrated in Mexico that has a particular tradition associated with it. He typed it first in Spanish, then was kind enough to translate it. This tradition is a particular game of his family, that everyone participates in, but he knows of other families who participate in similar games or pranks.

 

As the informant explains, his family has a prank that they play on each other on Holy Innocents Day. If a member of their family loans them something, then they get to keep it. The example that the informant gives is that he gets his sister to land him her car, then he says the special phrase, and gets to keep her car. He would likely return her car, but there are other members of his family that take this game more seriously and would keep it. This is a popular game of Mexican children, that they get to borrow things from friends or family and, if they say the phrase, then they get to keep the thing.

This arrises from the forbidding of lending on this holy day. Christians, up to at least Shakespeare’s time, were not allowed to lend money or items with interest. Jews took the niche market and became money lenders. This is a major part of the plot in The Merchant of Venice. This rule is not enforced anymore, but the idea of lending is still enough of a forbiddance that it is attached to this holy day.

The actual phrase said to catch someone lending changes from family to family or town to town. Sometimes it is a short song, sometimes just “Naive dove.” The informant, for example, shortens the phrase to “Naive little dove!” instead of staying the full phrase that his family normally uses. The idea of the dove is the symbol of innocence ties into holy Innocents Day. The rest of the phrase just calls the person out on their lending when it is forbidden.

“Heard it from the horse’s mouth”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, Ukiah
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English

I was talking with my friend and I said that I needed to hear a fact straight from the person who said it, and then she said something like, “yeah, you have to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” I inquired what she meant by this, where she had heard it from, etc. This is what she told me.

Informant: “My mom says, ‘I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth’ and that means that you heard it from the person who said it, so it’s authentic.”

Collector: “Do you know why it’s specifically a horse?”

Informant: “I don’t know, but she did grow up around a lot of horses. She grew up on a cattle ranch. And they all rode horses around.”

Collector: “So do you think this is specific to farmer culture or rancher people, rather than city folk?”

Informant: “I think so because you tend to… your language is dependent on your surroundings. You use analogies based on where you live, or on the things that you know”

The informant didn’t know much more about the origins of the proverb, but after some basic online search, I found that thefreedictionary.com offers the following explanation: “this expression alludes to examining a horse’s teeth todetermine its age and hence its worth. [1920s]” As my informant mentioned, this expression probably originated from a culture that was accustomed to being around horses, so its relevance in the future might be questionable.