Category Archives: Proverbs

King Snake and Coral Snake

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Residence: Marin County, CA
Primary Language: English

Type: Fixed Phrase

  1. “So in there are two different snakes that look almost identical, one is poisonous and the other is totally harmless. They both have only three colors on them. One has, red, yellow and black, while the other is red, white, and black. There was a saying that I picked up that taught you how to tell which one was poisonous and which one was harmless. ‘Red touch black; venom lack. Red touch yellow; kill a fellow.” King Snakes are the harmless ones and Coral Snakes are the super deadly ones. I was going around the desert with some friends when some other travelers told us about the desert snakes. We were in the Southwest (Arizona area).”
  2. I obtained this piece of folklore from my cousin Clay. Clay is a year older than me, and grew up in Mill Valley California, which is located in Marin County (just North of San Francisco). Clay has been on numerous trips outdoors, and spends a significant amount of time in nature. He is trained as a college outdoor guide as well as a backpacking specialist. Clay obtained this phrase while in the Southwest desert area, he does not remember exactly which state he was in, but somewhere around Arizona area, and he did at one point go close to the Mexico border.
  3. In North America but mainly the desert biomes, there are two types of snakes that look very similar, although one of the two is incredibly dangerous—due to its strong venom. King snakes are harmless while Coral snakes have a deadly venom. Many hikers and campers confuse the two snakes, and put their life’s in potential danger. This folk saying helps people identify the dangerous snake from the harmless one, in an easy, simple rhyme.
  4. I have never heard this saying before because I do not spend that much time in desert areas, but if I were to, I would want to know this folk saying. However, I might not remember it, which would defeat the whole purpose.

Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult

Nationality: African-American (Ivory Coast/Scottish/Welsh)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shoreline, WA
Performance Date: 4/5/17
Primary Language: English

Context: My roommate discovered this meme one day, and it prompted a discussion about the various levels of depth it reached.

Background: My roommate is a self-described “conveyor of fine memes” and has a hobby of collecting, creating, and sharing Internet memes.

The Meme: The meme (attached to this post) is a play on the phrase “easy peasy lemon squeezy.” The phrased is reworked in a text explanation that laments the fact that things are not “easy peasy lemon squeezy” as once believed, but are in fact “difficult difficult lemon difficult.” This explanation is accompanied by the image of a middle-aged woman furiously gripping a laptop in both hands and biting into it.

Analysis: This became a folklore discussion as a surprise, as the further my roommate and I discussed it, the more it seemed to work as a piece of folk speech. “Difficult difficult lemon difficult” is definitely an evolution of the saying “easy peasy lemon squeezy,” which itself has an origin that feels meaningless in the context the phrase has since gained. The specific discovery of the newly-changed saying also has the context of being in meme form, memes being one of the more common areas of unauthored expression in the 21st century.

Fatherly Advice

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, OR
Performance Date: 3/13/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese (Mandarin)

Context: I collected this from a friend on a trip over Spring Break, after he’d heard me talking about folklore with another friend I was collecting from.

Background: A piece of advice in the form of a proverb my friend’s dad taught him to live by.

Phrase: The most important thing is to think. The second most important thing is let other people think.

Analysis: The piece is simple, really just some advice that’s important for parents to give to their kids. My friend specified this was something his father told him every time he “did something stupid,” but I appreciate that the proverb refers to the world beyond yourself and stresses the importance of respecting other peoples’ minds.

“Be good to your teeth, or they will be false to you.”

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: building contractor
Residence: Burlington, MA
Performance Date: 3/13/17
Primary Language: English

So what’s the meaning behind that?

 

Uh, I mean I think it’s just clever and funny.  If you aren’t good to your teeth, you’re gonna end up with false teeth.”

 

Ohh ok, now I get it

 

Oh my gosh!!  You didn’t get that!?  I think that one is so funny, so cute.

 

 

Conclusion:

 

This little saying is a short, clever play on words.  My Uncle Steve told me that his Aunt used to say this to him and his cousins all the time.  Apparently, she had taken poor care of her teeth as a child and young adult.  She started having to wear false teeth in her late 50s.  With this precautionary tale in mind, it comes as no surprise that my Uncle Steve has a nice, pearly white smile.  “I didn’t wanna end up with chompers like hers,” he jokingly says of his Aunt.

 

“When you know a thing, allow that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, allow that you do not know it. This is knowledge.”

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: financial executive
Residence: Winchester, MA
Performance Date: 3/17/17
Primary Language: English

 

“So in other words, knowledge– know it alls are kind of… stupid and the fact that they think they know it all.  Really knowledgeable and smart people are those that are open– they open their mind to learning… all the time.  And so if you don’t know something then you say, “Oh, tell me about that!” you know?  You don’t just act like you know it already.”

 

Conclusion:

 

This was told to me by my Dad’s friend, Evan.  He says his mother used to tell him little sayings like this all the time.  He says that this one stuck with him more because he’s found it to be the most applicable in the different stages of his life.  He explains that the jist of this saying is that you have to accept your lack of knowledge on a subject before you can really start learning about it.