Category Archives: Humor

Latin Proverb – Postquam vinum, lac Fac testamento tuo

Nationality: American
Age: 70
Occupation: Musician
Residence: Austin
Performance Date: 03/16/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish

Content: Latin Proverb
“Postquam vinum, lac. Fac testamento tuo.”

Transliteration –
“After the wine, milk. Make your will.”

Translation –
“If after wine, you drink milk, make your last will and testament.”

Context:
Informant – “I heard it from my father. He was quite the linguist. I’ve never heard anyone else say it, but the idea is that if you drink wine then milk, the milk will curdle in your stomach and you’ll feel very sick.”

Analysis:
Wine will curdle milk, so the proverb is factual. The fact that informant’s father told him the proverb in Latin heightens the humor. It’s a pretty silly, intentionally humorous quote and Latin is usually a very ostentatious language.

Katch Nazar

Nationality: Armenian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

Context: This tale was performed in the apartment of the informant to an audience of 3 people.

Background: This tale was told to the informant by her father, who is Armenian.

“There is like this old dude in an Armenian village who calls himself, “Katch Nazar” Katch meaning Ferocious, or Strong. Nazar being his name. He says that he has killed 1000 beings. People are confused, and they ask how he, an old man, could have killed 1000 beings? He replies that he felt itchy in his sleep, and reveals that the 1000 beings which he killed were flies, not people.”

This joke shows uses wordplay to set up, and then defy the audience’s expectations by playing with the meaning of the word Katch.

How do you get a violist to play with vibrato?

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Musician/ Composer
Residence: New York
Primary Language: English

Context: This joke was told to over the phone by an older relative of mine

Background: This relative has been teaching music for 15+ years at a small liberal arts college.

Q: How do you get a violist to play with vibrato?
A: You write the word ‘Solo’ above the notes

This joke plays on the idea that Violists are very timid, and generally try to avoid solos.

The Conductor came to MY House?

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Musician/ Composer
Primary Language: English

Context: This joke was told to over the phone by an older relative of mine

Background: This relative has been teaching music for 15+ years at a small liberal arts college.
A violist comes home one day and sees his home is burned down. The policeman says, “Conductor came, killed your family, and burned down your house.”
The Violist says, “The Conductor came to MY house?!”

This joke plays on the idea that Violists are very timid, and would not typically be noticed or acknowledged by the conductor.

Spoon Full of Cinnamon

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Sushi Chef
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/6/19
Primary Language: English

Context:
My friends and I were discussing the ongoing popularity of Internet challenges and where this all came from. It is clear that people do just about anything for some Internet fame. One of the earliest challenges that we could remember was the cinnamon challenge which we recalled to be happening at the end of our middle school experience. The challenge involves putting a tablespoon of cinnamon in your mouth and trying to swallow it without drinking anything and then posting a video of it on the Internet. It came to massive popularity in the early 2010‘s but quickly lost it after the realization of possible health problems.

Piece:
W: “remember when D—- and I did the cinnamon challenge?”
Me: “hahah yes! And you almost threw up”
W: “yeah that sh** made me sick, I can’t believe we even did that. Why?”
Me: “I don’t know, seemed like a good idea at the time I guess hahah, I’m pretty sure I recorded it.”
W: “where did that trend even come from, I swear Everyone and they mom did the cinnamon challenge.”
Me: “I saw it on YouTube, I think it was some kid I subscribed to.”
Wyatt: “I remember Miranda sings doing it.”

Discussion:
It was at this point that I realized that we had stumbled upon some folklore. Although just about everyone knows about this challenge I wondered who may not. We also mostly wondered where this originally started. Was it YouTube? Or was it somewhere else first? After some short investigating I discovered that the first documentation of the cinnamon challenge was in December 2001 but the idea made its way to YouTube in 2006. The massive popularity that we all remember was in January 2012 but only lasted about half the year then fell off again. I would consider this an American folklore for people born just before the start of the Internet age and after.

One of the earlier attempts: