For this joke, you make a peace sign with your fingers (V) and high-five someone with your fingers in said position while saying: “Roman five!”
The joke here is an erudite one since you have to have an understanding of Roman numerals to know that the roman five was written as ‘V’. This joke was told to me by my mother who heard it from a friend in the O.C.
Category Archives: Gestures
A bag of potatoes
Context
This short song/lullaby is performed to a child of the ages 0-3 years of age for no particular reason. When sung, the adult is usually hugging the child and swaying along to the beat of the song.
Material
Yo vendo un costal de papas, ¿quien me lo quiere comprar? Lo vendo por diabluriento y porque me ha pagado mal.
Translation
I sell a bag of potatoes, who wants to buy it? I sell him for mischief and because he has paid me wrong.
Meaning of the Song
The child is being referred to as a bag of potatoes that the adult wants to sell because the child is always getting into trouble and doing wrong.
Analysis by the informant
The informant is unsure as to where she learned the song but she believes it was once a romance song but she changed the wording of a section of the song so it would be a childhood song instead. The informant does not remember singing it to her daughters but she does sing it now to her grandsons whom live with her and are of ages 2 and 4. Her youngest grandson sometimes sings along with her as she sings it to him. The informant performs the song as a playful form with her grandsons because she carries them and they sing it with her. It is a playful form in which she tells them how much of troublemakers they are but that she still loves them.
Analysis by the interviewer
I think this is a nice short song that is not exactly a lullaby but not a full song or proverb, just a short saying which has a lot of meaning to both the informant and the child. Seeing it in its original context, I believe that the children get the same meaning from the short song as the informant because the children are always smiling and in a good mood when it is being sung to them.
Cross yourself when you speak of the dead
“When you’re talking about someone who died, you have to do the sign of the cross after you say something, especially if you said something bad.”
My informant comes from an Irish-American Catholic family. Crossing oneself is a common gesture within this community, especially when talking of the dead. Although Catholics don’t technically believe in ghosts, the general consensus seems to be that speaking ill of the dead could lead to repercussions for the speaker. Crossing oneself could help with any negative effects of speaking ill of the dead. In addition, crossing oneself when speaking of the dead in general serves as a blessing and a way of commemorating the dead; it is a sign of respect.
Don’t shake your leg
“If you shake your leg when you’re sitting, you shake off all your good luck.”
My informant comes from a Korean family. She had no idea why she was taught this as a child, but recalled her mother being adamant about the dangers of shaking one’s leg (she demonstrated – the saying seems to apply to when one is sitting with one leg crossed over the other, jiggling the foot of the leg on top). There could be some sort of superstition involved in this belief; however, I think it’s likely that people simply wanted their children to stop fidgeting and made up a reason for them to refrain.
Vagina Peeking
“You ask someone if they want to see a vagina, and usually the answer is “yes.” So you ask them to put their palms together and hold their hands out so one hand is on top of the other. They have to spread their fingers, and then you put your palms together and spread your fingers and put your hands between their fingers. Then you ask them to open their hands and look inside. It’s a vagina!”
My informant for this piece of folklore heard this from a friend when she was in middle school. She felt that a lot of kids in middle school were sharing this with one another and asking if people wanted to see a vagina to the point where it got old. The age group amongst which this folklore is shared is important because it is around this age that school kids start sex education and grow increasingly curious about their bodies. For children go around school demonstrating to one another the anatomy of the female sex organ shows that they are getting familiar with their bodies and, in a way, socially educating each other in humorous ways.