Category Archives: Humor

The Language of Ubbi Dubbi

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: St. Louis, Missouri
Performance Date: 4/17/2018
Primary Language: English

Informant Info: The informant is an 18-year-old from St. Louis, Missouri. She is currently a freshman studying Public Policy at USC.

Interview Transcript:

Interviewer: From all of our previous interactions, I know you have a habit of a funky little language. Can you tell me more about it?

 

Interviewee: The language is called ubbi dubbi, and it originated on a show called Zoom, which is a PBS kids show. All you need to do is put ub in front of every vowel when speaking. We started speaking it in middle school and then in high school everyone seemed to be super into it. It got bad enough that at a certain point that teachers had to put “No phones, no calculators, and no ubbi dubbi” on tests because kids would cheat through it. But yeah, I still like to make memes with it or I’ll just randomly speak it for fun to throw people off.

 

Analysis:

You must love the good old forms of variation and multiplicity. This collection is an example of how popular media can influence folklore, particularly through kids. The language was a silly piece of a kids show, yet the humorous sounds inspired the informant to make a hobby out of speaking it.  I’ll give her credit… it’s harder than it seems to speak it successfully. But, nonetheless, it shows popular media being taken and morphed into an actual language.

Nickname Mix-Up

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, Oregon
Performance Date: 4/14/2018
Primary Language: English

Informant Info: The informant is a 22-year-old male who was born and raised in Portland, Oregon and comes from a Catholic family. He currently is a senior at USC and is very into half-marathon and marathon racing.

 

Interview Transcript:

Interviewer: Any major proverbs or inside jokes within your family?

 

Interviewee: My mom always calls me Pedros Diaz  um because… and that’s I mean when people are like “I don’t really get that”. But what happened was I was a kid…when I was like 10. We were in Costa Rica for like my dad’s vacation and we were learning Spanish and I was just not very good at it and the guy just kept quizzing me. He was like “Yeah, so you know like what is your name? How old are you?” And I just got confused at the time and he was like “How old are you? PEDRO! And he’s like “what’s your name?” DIAZ!! So, I my Spanish mixed up and then, so he was like “AH Pedro Diaz!!!” And then I guess my parents have just called me that ever since. And then other proverbs I would say umm my parents always said just like treat others like you want to be treated… Uhh so I know that’s a pretty common one. But one they definitely had me remember and whenever I strayed from that they would sit me down and say something like “Is that how you want someone to treat you in that sense” or something like that. I think those are great first steps words like developing like any sort of empathy. I just realized that while my parents are really good. Like if I did something like I said I’m their friend they would really speak out to be like how does that make you feel that you’re in their shoes. And so, I think very encouraging that through something like that phrase made me think about other people’s perspectives. So, I think it definitely I feel like I still do think about it on my way. But I feel like as a kid I probably thought about it more than many a lot of other kids. So, I would say them saying that definitely made me feel more empathetic as a kid.

 

Analysis:

This collection resembles an inside joke on a family level. The informant’s simple mistake in learning a new language turned into an inside joke when the Spanish tutor just went along with calling him “Pedro Diaz”. Instead of laughing at the moment and letting it fade into the past, his parents held on to the memory. It was a shared moment and serves as a joke within the family. Individuals outside of the family may not understand the meaning behind it, but to the informant and his family, the simple nickname holds a fond memory that brings laughter. When telling the story, he visibly and audibly got excited and cheerful when describing the context of the story. This will likely be a joke that will continue to be passed down within the family to his kids.

 

 

A Texan Christmas

Nationality: American-Hispanic
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Cast Member at Walt Disney World
Residence: San Antonio, Texas
Performance Date: 3/14/2018
Primary Language: English

Informant Info: The informant is a 20-year-old female who was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Her mother is Caucasian, and her father is Hispanic. She currently lives in Orlando, Florida and works for Walt Disney World.

 

Interview Transcript:

Interviewer: Do you have any major holidays that you celebrate? How do you celebrate it?

 

Interviewee: My family has celebrated Christmas the same every year since my brother was born almost 25 years ago. We start Christmas Eve as you would any holiday by prepping “dinner” for around 3 o’clock. We all get in our Sunday best and eat Christmas Eve dinner as a family. After dinner, dessert, and a lot of laughs we sit in the living room reminiscing old Christmas memories. My personal favorite is the one my Grandaddy used to tell about how ecstatic I was to receive a hot wheels toy at a mere 3 years old. After story time we each open a few presents which are the same every year. We start with our matching Christmas jammies and we all change into them immediately. Then my grandma hands us each three boxes. One has pistachios (And uhh..I don’t know the origin of that one). One has a check. And the last has an ornament she found earlier in the year that reminds her of us. After we hang our ornaments on the tree we write our letter to Santa. Each sibling alternates writing it each year and since there’s 4 of us we get a pretty decent break! Last we set out milk and gingerbread cookies for Santa and hang up our stocking, including ones for our fur babies. Then we all go to sleep and wake up not so bright and early Christmas morning!

 

 

Analysis:

Within this one family, there are several interesting pieces of folklore, that I was unfortunately not able to fully get out of the informant. Her family seems to hold on to old traditions and memories, yet the origin is unclear. She says that her family has been doing this for at least 25 years. By the sounds of it, many of the traditions, such as the matching pajamas or the pistachios, fall into the genre of practical jokes. She claims that she loves everything about her Christmas and plans on doing the same thing for her kids, once she has a family of her own. In addition, this tradition seems to share similarities on a macro level, such as a large family dinner on Christmas Eve, writing letters to Santa (a common folk tradition), hanging ornaments, and leaving out milk and cookies.

 

Don’t Let Your Meat Loaf

Nationality: USA
Age: 45
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/19/2018
Primary Language: English

“Don’t let your meat loaf!”

G’s father used to say this to her as a child, which is why she began saying it, too. She thinks it is funny and it reminds her of her childhood, as well as her father. She says it often and enjoys when her family members say it, as well. She says it mostly as a joke and has never considered its meaning while saying it.

My mom said this to my dad and me all the time while I grew up. She would say it when we were leaving to go somewhere, like, for example, if my dad was leaving to go to the grocery store. She would call out after him, “Bye! Don’t let your meat loaf!”

This phrase never seemed strange to me, because I heard it all the time growing up. One time, I actually looked it up and was shocked and sort of horrified to learn its very sexual meaning. I didn’t even know it was a common phrase; I always thought it was just something my grandpa made up and circulated around the family.

Squirrel in the Middle of the Street

Nationality: USA
Age: 60
Occupation: CEO
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

If you’re driving down the street and you almost hit a squirrel running in the middle of the road, it’s not considered a squirrel anymore. What is it, you ask? A quirrel. Why? Because you just scared the “s” out of it.

This is something M’s dad said to him once, and he’s been repeating it ever since. He likes it because it’s funny and he’s never heard it told before, and no one he’s ever told it to has heard it either. It’s important to him because his dad made it up.

This joke is so lame it’s funny. You laugh because it’s kind of stupid, but as far as personally-made up jokes go, it’s pretty good. It’s not funny enough to be memorable, but funny enough to earn a little laugh.