Tag Archives: folk speech

Cuban Riddle

Nationality: Cuban
Age: 57
Residence: Miami, FL
Performance Date: 3/16/16
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Original Script: “Un muchacho le pregunta a una muchacha, ‘Cómo te llamas?’ Ella le contesta, ‘Si el enamorado es entendido, ahí va mi nombre y el color de mi vestido. La respuesta correcta es, ‘Su nombre es Elena y su vestido es morado.”

Transliteration: “A boy asks a girl, ‘How do you call yourself?’ She to him responds, ‘If the lover is understood, there goes my name and the color of my dress.’ The answer correct is, ‘Her name is Elena and her dress is purple.'”

Translation: “A boy asks a girl, ‘What’s your name?’ She responds, ‘If the lover is understood, there goes my name and the color of my dress.’ The correct answer is, “Her name is Elena and her dress is purple.'”

 

This riddle only makes sense in Spanish because the Spanish word for lover, enamorado, is a combination of the last three letter’s of the girl’s name, Elena, as well as the color of her dress, morado. ena+morado=enamorado. Furthermore, the word enamorado is preceded by the word el in the joke. El translates into “the” in this context. The woman in the riddle is testing the man to see if he’s clever enough to figure out  her name using only the clue, rather than just asking for it.

The source said she heard it at a bridal shower. They were telling wedding riddles, and this one came up. It’s a coy riddle, with the woman sounding very flirtatious. It seems she’s interested in this man, but only if he’s smart enough to beat her game. It seems odd that her dress would be purple rather than white, though. Perhaps in some earlier version of the riddle, the man was a prince? Because purple is known to indicate royalty.

 

For another form of this riddle:

Ortiz Y Pino De Dinkel, Reynalda, and Dora Gonzales De Martínez. Una Colección De Adivinanzas Y Diseños De Colcha = A Collection of Riddles and Colcha Designs. Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone, 1988. Google Books. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.

“I’m Staying Another Week” – How Punchlines Pervade Daily Life

Nationality: American
Age: 54
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 04/05/15
Primary Language: English
Language: none

The informant is a 54 year old woman, who has lived in the United States all her life. She was raised by her mother and has no siblings. She attended school through college, and lives in downtown Chicago with her husband. The following is what she described as “folkspeech” from her mother-in-law.

 

Informant: “It’s from a joke. So, whenever, if we were having a disagreement, like your uncle and I, about anything, and you’d ask your Grandma’s opinion about it. Like, “What do you think?” She’d say, “The soup’s not hot, the soup’s not cold, and I’m staying another week.” It was a punchline to a joke about a married couple whose mother-in-law is there visiting and won’t leave so they stage a fight to try and make her leave. She realizes what they’re doing so she says, “the soup’s not hot, the soup’s not cold, and I’m staying another week.” So whenever I would try to get her involved, that’s what she would do. She said that all the time.

 

Interviewer: “Do you know where she heard the joke?”

 

Informant: “Oh, from Grandpa, I’m sure. He had so many jokes, you remember.

 

Interviewer: “Of course. Do you know where he got his jokes?”

 

Informant: “He would hear them and I guess kind of mentally collect them to tell.

 

Thoughts: Initially I was unsure as to whether or not this was folklore. The phrase itself doesn’t seem very “folkloric” in nature; neither does the informant’s in-law’s use of the phrase. However, when I thought about the phrase again, I realized that it is a form of folklore. The phrase itself came from the punch line of a joke—something that people learn from other people—and the informant’s mother-in-law took the punch line into a different context, her daily life. This is a perfect example of how folklore can traverse across different mediums and how it can be applied in different ways.

 

Track is Life

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is a senior member of the USC track and field team. He is of African American descent and is entirely dedicated to his sport.

 

“Track is life. To eat healthy—these are words I learned from J.P—to eat healthy, to practice hard, to watch videos and film and study other people and how they run and how to help yourself run. So you just eat, breathe, sleep track. Its all you think about, its all you do. It’s a thing, it’s a thing actually, but it can also be applied to other sports. Like, ball is life. Like when n****s eat, drink, and sleep basketball. So like even if you *motions twisting his ankle* you just keep goin cause its life.”

 

Analysis: This proverb exemplifies the lifestyle of the person or people who use it. The statement is simple but powerful “track is life” meaning that everything that that individual does, is for track. I thought that this piece was particularly interesting because the noun in the beginning of the proverb can be changed depending on the sport and the groups of athletes that use it. Track is life for someone who runs, but “ball is life” for another individual who plays basketball or football. The universality of the proverb is part of what makes it so powerful, it can be applied to almost anyone and anything with simple changes to the word choice. It is also something that can be universally understood, because anyone who is in love with their sport will understand what the speaker is saying when they state that “Track is life” or “Ball is life” etc.

 

DYEL

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/24/15
Primary Language: English

“Do you even lift?”

 

“I would use it if . . . if someone was like walking down the street and they looked like they were really jacked and they were wearing like, one of those like douche-y frat bro tanks, I’d be like, ‘Dude, D-Y-E-L?’ But, like, if he didn’t lift then he’d probably be like, ‘What?’ but if he did he’d be like, ‘Oh, dude totally.’ And then it’s like that connection.”

 

The informant thinks she learned it from a hashtag on an Instagram account for CrossFit. “It means a lot, actually, like to me personally . . . If someone knows what DYEL means then it’s like, oh like, you’ve done your research type of thing, or it’s like you follow those CrossFit Instagrams, you follow those like bodybuilding Instagrams, like you’re into the fitness which means you’re like into the community and like . . . ‘cause a lot of people do say like, ‘Oh yeah I work out,’ and it’s like I could sit on a treadmill and watch TV too. Like I don’t consider that a workout. Like if you can watch TV that’s not a workout to me. If you can, like, have thoughts that’s not a workout to me it’s like you should be pushing yourself to be, like, where your body is failing . . . where it’s like you can’t do another sit-up, you can’t do another squat, you can’t do another push-up . . . ‘cause then it means like you’re actually, like, making your body better. And that’s what lifting is about. It’s like pushing yourself, ‘cause it’s not only like, like you’re not only pushing yourself physically, but you have to be mentally strong because it’s like, it’s painful to be like, ‘Fuck, I have to do this again?’”

 

“Like I can instantly look at someone, even if they’re in a full suit, and be like, ‘Yes or no.’ Like, from the way, like, they look or like I see all these guys in the gym and their upper bodies look strong, but I can lift more than them . . . It’s interesting, the culture, because they do it for looks rather than functionality and like, I don’t have a six-pack by any means, like I have, like, more fat on my body, but like, I’m in better shape than them . . . they’re way off, which is, like really sad, because like, they don’t know what they’re doing and then like you’re destroying your body and you’re gonna hurt yourself later in life, which is a really sad thought . . . They’re doing it wrong, and they don’t even lift. So that is my DYEL.”

 

The informant was a 21-year-old USC student who grew up in competitive snowboarding and has dabbled in CrossFit and other workout programs. She sees herself as a part of “lifting culture” and values physical strength and hard work in other people. It was interesting to me that she had such a long explanation of what “DYEL” means, as I had only previously heard about it in a joking context. From what I understand about “DYEL,” it is frequently used as a sarcastic turn of phrase online and in the world at large. I agree with the gist of what the informant said, though, as it seems like this acronym is a way of quickly establishing who belongs in the lifting community, and who does not. It seems like the community is very aware of how it is perceived and that people frequently try to pass for being a part of it, so things like “DYEL” easily separate out those that are “in the know.” Of course, it is also noteworthy that the informant learned of this acronym/hashtag from an Instagram account. It speaks to the spaces in which the lifting community is meeting and the way they feel they need to express themselves in a larger social sphere.

“Send it!”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/23/15
Primary Language: English

“Okay, so in the snowboarding world, when, um, you’re about to, like—‘cause I was a competitive snowboarder, you know, and so we would hit, like, really big jumps or something and then, or like if the pipe was like really big that day, um, so usually it’s used with jumps that are like over like 25 feet, so no like it doesn’t have to be big [laughs of disbelief from other people in room], but usually they’ll be like 90 feet when people use this saying and it’s not like, it’s like a, um, we would be like, ‘Oh, like fucking send it!’ That means like ‘huck yourself,’ like ‘do like what you got’ or yeah, like spin whatever, do flips and so it’s like just like ‘give it your all’ type of deal and so yeah we would just use ‘sending it.’ ‘Cause then it’s like ain’t nothing comin’ back, ‘cause you’re sending it and you’re giving it your all and you’re gonna kill it.”

 

The informant was a 21-year-old USC student who grew up in competitive snowboarding and has dabbled in CrossFit and other workout programs. She has been in a prominent sorority on campus since coming to USC and goes out every night of the weekend, as well as some nights of the week. I live with the informant and the interview took place in my room during one of the lengthy conversations we often have. The informant has been known to use aspects of her athletic and workout life in social interactions and “Send it!” is no different. She went on to tell me that “So now I’ve started to integrate that into the Greek life culture and so if someone’s in a drinking game I’m like, ‘Dude, fucking send this game!’ and they’re like, ‘I’m gonna send it.’ (Interviewer says: “It’s not coming back!”) And then they drink a lot. Yeah, it’s not coming back. So then they just like drink a lot.”

 

This piece of folk speech was interesting to me because of the meaning behind something like “Send it!” The other people in the room and I got hooked on the idea that you would say it because “it wasn’t coming back.” In addition to this being about “giving it your all,” it seems like it’s about taking opportunities when you have them. It would make sense, then, that the informant would translate this phrase into other areas of her life, like the Greek life culture. It is easier to do wild things at a party when you have someone telling you it is the moment to do them. It is also interesting that it is primarily a way of encouraging someone else to do something. While it could come across as pretty aggressive to the uninitiated, those inside of snowboarding culture would know that it is a way of supporting one another and pushing each other to get better and try new things.