Category Archives: Humor

MS College for Women: Old Maid’s Gate

Nationality: American, caucasian
Age: Upper 60s
Occupation: Blue Collar— Homemaker, stockman, Home Depot Employee, etc.
Residence: Columbus, MS
Performance Date: 4/21/18
Primary Language: English

Title: MS College for Women: Old Maid’s Gate

Category: Curse/ Conversion Magic

Informant: Lieanne Walker

Nationality: American, caucasian

Age: Upper 60s

Occupation: Blue Collar— Homemaker, stockman, Home Depot Employee, etc.

Residence: Columbus, MS

Date of Collection: 4/21/18

Description:

The Old Maid’s Gate on The Mississippi College for Women’s campus has a curse associated with it. Women entering campus on foot from a certain drop off location will sometimes purposefully avoid the gate in order to not have to go through a charm of reversal in order to undo to curse. The gate is on the corner of campus in a  central location (making it a nuisance to avoid or have to follow through with), and appears to look like any other marble statue. However, if a woman is entering campus through the gate (and there are only a limited number of gates that one can enter the camps through), then she has to walk backwards under the gate all the way down that sidewalk of campus until she reaches the statue at the end of the park, turns around, and kisses it— This statue is known as the “kissing rock.” If the woman passing under the gate fails to do this, then she will grow up to become an old maid.

Context/Significance:

The “W” as the college is known, is famous for a few ghost stories and superstitions. This one in particular is special since there is a way of reversing the outcome of the curse. Since the “W” is a women’s college, its not surprising that this story would revolve around something bad that could happen to women in particular. Becoming an “old maid” is an irrelevant but somewhat universal fear shared by a majority of women, and the “W” being a location that houses a large number of women at a young age, it’s not surprising that a common fear at that location would be ending up alone.

Also, during the time that this tradition was probably established, in earlier years it was more common for women to have to rely on men for a sustainable lifestyle. Marriage held more importance and it was something you’d never want to be cursed from if possible.

Personal Thoughts:

My Aunt attended the “W” when she went to college and I remember her telling us the story of the old maid’s gate. When my mother tells the story she say s what happened was that her family was taking Aunt Chris back to school one semester and everyone was piled in the car to drop her off. When they arrived at the College my Grandfather prompted her to get out of the car. Aunt Chris refused and asked to be dropped off at another open gate to the school. My grandfather was refusing until she told him the story of the Old Maid’s gate and how she didn’t want to have to go through the ritual in order to carry her things back to her dorm. While they sat in the car, they actually watched another girl go through the conversion as they watched— They then agreed to drop her off at another gate.

Annotation:

For additional history behind MS College for Women’s Old Maid’s Gate, read an exert from:

Golden Days: Reminiscences of Alumnae, Mississippi State College for Women

MLA Citation:

Pieschel, Bridget Smith. Golden Days: Reminiscences of Alumnae, Mississippi State College for Women. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2009.

The Crypto Term “Hodl”

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Masters-level engineering student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 7, 2018
Primary Language: English

Daniel Shapiro is currently pursuing his masters degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA.  He dedicates much of his free time to researching and investing in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology (or ‘decentralized ledger technology’).  As a result of recent profit yields, the market for these technologies has grown exponentially and begun to attract investors from around the world.  Online forums and communities are emerging in tandem with the technologies themselves.  Reddit, an online social news aggregation, is one of the most popular websites among crypto enthusiasts.  There, they exchange information about blockchain technology and offer advice to other investors.  Daniel frequents these websites and has adopted the “language” of crypto.  In the excerpt below, he describes the origins of one specific term, “hodl,” and then explains how it is used across various forums.

 

Daniel: “So, on the Reddit crypto forums, there’s a notorious post where someone was telling everyone to ‘hold,’ as in ‘don’t sell your bit-coins, or your alt-coins’ but he misspelled ‘hold’ as ‘h-o-d-l,’ or ‘hodl.’  So now, in all crypto forums and twitter and in any crypto blogs, space, whatever — people say ‘hodl’ instead of ‘hold.’  And it’s a term to say, when the price is going bad, ‘hodl’ and don’t sell, because if you’re selling away at a low price when you SHOULD be holding and selling at a high price.”

Isabella: “And what is cryptocurrency?”

Daniel: “Crypto is a buzzword name given to decentralized ledger technologies… which are, effectively, networks of computers which operate as a single server, so you don’t need a third-party server to host different networks, which are centralized and controlled by a single party, and require advertising to pay for their servers.”

Isabella: “And why do crypto forums exist?”

Daniel: “Well, these forums exist to… spread news about many of the different cryptocurrencies… such as, when they [the creators and proprietors of blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies] release specific products or make specific partnerships.  They’re mainly for distributing information… also to have discussions about the coin.  But realistically, probably about half of these pages are just ‘meme’ pages.”

The original author of the term ‘hodl’ was ridiculed on account of his spelling error. As such, ‘hodl’ has satirical undertones and is often used in a joking manner. But as Daniel notes in the transcription above, ‘hodl’ is also used during actual trading deliberations, wherein the goal is to dissuade someone from selling their shares at a low price. ‘Hodl’ serves as an example of folk speech because it is unique to the crypto community and serves a specific purpose amongst its members — one’s knowledge and use of the term can corroborate their belonging to the community.

“How the Tortoise’s Shell Cracked”

Nationality: Nigerian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 10, 2018
Primary Language: English

Stanley Kalu studies screenwriting at the University of Southern California. He is originally from Nigeria, but has moved several times throughout his life. He spent a significant portion of his life in Nairobi, Kenya and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He recalls hearing a number of stories as he grew up; many of these stories conveyed moral lessons and were told to younger audiences. In the excerpt below, Stanley recounts a folk tale he heard as a child:

Stanley: “So back when I was young, my mom would tell me a story of how the tortoise got his shell cracked. And the story went like this: the tortoise, being the most intelligent animal in the animal kingdom, during a drought said ‘hey birds, let’s go to heaven. You can fly me up there and I’ll talk to God, and everything will be fine, we’ll all get food, it will be fine. But in heaven, we’ll all have different names. So my name will be all of you, right? My name will be all of you.’ And the birds agreed, so they flew him up to heaven. And then, they were talking to God, who brought a huge feast with him. And then God said, ‘this food is for all of you,’ and the tortoise said, ‘oh, that’s me!’ so he ate all of the food, and all the other animals got upset. So, they left him in heaven and he had no way of getting back down to Earth. So he had his wife place a soft pile of feathers on the ground to break his fall, but he missed. Then he cracked his shell and he had to piece it back together. And that is how the tortoise got his cracks.”

Isabella: “Does that communicate any sort of moral lesson?”

Stanley: “Yes—don’t be sneaky.”

The transcript above details a Nigerian folk tale. Stanley recounted the story as we sat at a café after class one day, and he appeared to have the story committed to memory entirely; this suggests that he heard the story frequently as he grew up. The tortoise story warns against deception and “sneakiness” by illustrating the consequences of such behavior. It serves as a template for other tales—the message is universal in a sense and the motifs are interchangeable.

“I’m just sayin’… *HACK*”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/27/18
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND:

Among the Interactive Media and Games Division at the University of Southern California, a strange joke occurs in which if one person utters the words (on purpose or to trigger this joke) “I’m just sayin’,” the rest of the IMGD students will all do a hacking, coughing, or vomiting impression.

INTERVIEW:

My source J explained it as such:

J: When ever like a group of us are together one of us will go, “I’m just sayin’,” and then the rest of us will all go “HOUGH”.

Me: Do you know why?

J: I don’t know… I’ve heard its a combination of two YouTube videos but the actual source of where this joke started is completely unknown, but we all know that the joke is funny.

MY THOUGHTS:

Its very interesting to me how each major at USC has its own culture. This is but one example of the types of jokes, proverbs, and legends that I’ve heard out of the IMGD major at USC. Despite being such a small group (30 students per class), the program is still able to develop its own forms of folklore specific to their major.

Claremont Colleges Birthday Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/22/18
Primary Language: English

Background information:

Throwing friends into the fountain on the day of their birthday has been a prank tradition for the span of several decades, and has become a birthday ritual for students at the five Claremont colleges. It is even noted on Claremont McKenna College’s website that the fountain at Flamson Plaza is a site that students visit to either study or to throw their friends into on their birthday.

Main Piece:

On the day of a friend’s birthday, it is a common tradition to throw that friend into a specific fountain at Claremont McKenna College. The fountain is located at Flamson Plaza and is in the middle the Claremont McKenna College campus. It is common for students from all five of the Claremont Consortium schools: Scripps College, Pomona College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, and Claremont McKenna College, to engage in this tradition. When it is a student’s birthday, friends of that student often barge into the student’s bedroom early in the morning, physically carry them over to the fountain at Flamson Plaza at Claremont McKenna College, and throw the student into the cold water as a sort of wake up to their birthday. When interviewing a friend of mine who was thrown into the fountain last year during her freshman year of college, she said that it was definitely one of the highlights of her time attending Claremont McKenna College. She said that this tradition was very unifying in the fact that this was a birthday ritual that was specific to the Claremont Colleges and made her feel that she was a part of the college community. My friend stated that even though this is a small tradition, it has a large impact on how an individual relates to the community at the Claremont Colleges and reaffirms the fact that a student’s friends care about them and want to celebrate their birthday.

 

Personal thoughts:

Throughout my time at Scripps College during my freshman year of college, I found that this was a specific tradition that peaked my interest. I would constantly see people being thrown into the ice-cold water of the fountains at Flamson Plaza and think that is was very entertaining. I would often think that it looks very entertaining to someone watching, but must be relatively burdensome for the student being abruptly woken up and thrown into the cold water in the morning of their birthday. As such, my friends at Scripps College knew that I did not want to be thrown into the fountain on my birthday and always joked that they would throw me into the fountain but never did, to my relief!