Tag Archives: folk speech

Midwestern Folk Simile

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Banker
Residence: Los Angeles/Kansas City
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

“You have just as good of a chance of meeting one as finding a kernel in a field of grain.”

The informant grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City before moving to Los Angeles with his wife and having kids. I am friends with his daughter who goes to USC, and we were coming back from dinner and discussing how his daughter couldn’t find a boyfriend here and how at parties there never seemed to be classy enough guys. I chipped in that I knew a few were out there but her dad came back with the folk expression above which made me laugh. I had never heard this expression before and was more used to hearing the “needle in the haystack” analogy.

I figured that he used this expression since he grew up in the Midwest but asked him how he learned it regardless. He told me he picked it up from his father and that lots of the expressions he uses today come from him spending lots of time with his dad. He also explained that in the Midwest, the expression isn’t as rare since farming is a huge part of daily life and industry there. Overall, I found it humorous that her dad used the expression in this manner, referring to how difficult it was to find a good enough guy for his daughter at a typical USC fraternity party.

French Proverb

Nationality: American
Age: 84
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Newport Beach, CA
Performance Date: 2/20/15
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Comme on fait son lit, on se couche.

As you make your bed, so you must lie.

My grandfather, like my grandmother, grew up in a small farming town in the middle of rural Louisiana. The town, Ponchatoula, was still very French/Creole in nature and both of my grandpa’s parents spoke French as their first language. When he was younger, my grandfather and his schoolmates would always take clandestine swims in the Mississippi River on hot and muggy afternoons, much to his mothers chagrin. She was always worried that he would get caught in a rip-current and end up drowning in the river.

When telling me about his youthful mischievous adventures on our home patio, my grandpa would always recall his mom telling him that proverb when he got himself into trouble. One of the days he went swimming in the river, he recalls being pinched by a crawfish then running home crying to his mother, who had nothing to say besides “Comme on fait son lit, on se couche,” which in simpler terms refers to having to put up with the unpleasant results of a foolish action. I enjoy this proverb because I find it interesting that the “make your bed, lie in it” proverb exists in other languages and cultures. The expression, though varying from place to place, is quite universally popular, with friends of mine from different backgrounds all using it in one way or another.

American Riddle

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: University of Southern California
Performance Date: 2/28/15
Primary Language: English

Riddle: At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen.

Answer: Stars

            My friend said that he heard this riddle in elementary school from a friend of his who heard it from his mother. He recalls that his friend fittingly told him this when they went on a fieldtrip to the Griffith Park Observatory. Both the informant and his friend don’t know the origins of this particular riddle. The riddle is rather simple, and doesn’t require quite as much thought as other riddles out there.

When I was younger, I heard a variation of this riddle, though the question part of the riddle was very similarly phrased. Instead of the answer being “stars,” the answer was a “shooting star.” I heard this particular riddle from my uncle. When I was younger, I would sometimes let myself sit for hours while trying to figure out riddles, with this being no exception. I would detest when my uncle would give away the answer. This particular riddle is almost pretty to me though, as I find the night sky both beautiful and fascinating.

Southern Folk Expression

Nationality: American
Age: 88
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Newport Beach, CA
Performance Date: Expression continually used since I was little, but I asked about it 4/1/15
Primary Language: English
Language: French

“He/she has taken a cotton onto you.”

My grandma grew up in a small town outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her parents were strawberry farmers and she helped take care of their farm before meeting my grandfather and moving to Long Beach, California. Whenever speaking about someone who seemed to be attracted to another person, she always uses the phrase “took a cotton to” to describe the situation, as cotton has a tendency to stick to clothing upon touching it. Since she grew up in the South, it’s not a surprise to see this expression become part of her vernacular, as cotton was one of the South’s main industries since its colonization. In speaking to my grandma, she learned the phrase by hearing her parents use it along with her friends parents when she was in elementary school, all of whom were involved in some sort of agricultural production.

I enjoy hearing my grandma say the phrase because it makes me feel more connected with my family roots in the South, despite many of the negative connotations that associate cotton growing with slavery. I’ve used the phrase a couple times here and though people understand the analogy, they tend to think of it as a random and bizarre expression since cotton farming is completely unfamiliar here in Los Angeles.

Military Acronyms

Nationality: Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, US Miltary Member
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 13, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Informant E was born in Korea and moved to El Centro California when she was 4. Before she came to USC she found that she was accepted into the school but also enlisted in the military. She put school on hold and deferred for a semester and went to training at the age of 17, and was one of the youngest soldiers to graduate. And after her experience with boot camp she came back to USC and started school and contracted to army ROTC. She has been deployed over the summers to Korea. She studies Psychology and Linguistics as a double major and a Forensics Criminality minor combined with dance as well. She wants to use her schooling and military experience to be in the FBI one day.

In the military we have a lot of acronyms we use throughout like AR, PT, APFT, UCMJ, MJP, EAS, basically ROTC and the army is just full of acronyms. I feel like when we get together we talk about these things and we know what they all stand for and the abbreviations but other people really don’t and there’s this specific one called the CNN. And CNN is like a news network and we call it the Cadet News Network so its basically like the rumor mill you know like what only the cadets know. And so in the military there’s the cadets and then there’s the cadres who are like the people in charge of us and then there’s the NCOs, Non-Commissioned Officers, that’s an acronym right there, and none of them are aware of the CNN. That’s only within like our group. Especially when its something so tailored, it can really exclude everyone else and they have like no idea what’s going on. So we might say like, ‘Oh did you hear about cadet so and so doing this on the weekend?’ then we’ll say like oh I heard through the CNN that he was over here or here and like none of the people above us will understand what were talking about. It all stays within the CNN. We all kind of know what’s happening on the outside all within this professional setting, and to us its almost like an inside joke and were not supposed to talk about this outside occurrence. Were supposed to be integrating into the actual army so if someone found out about the kinds of stuff we talk about it could be really bad. They expect us to be professional and its kind of hard to balance that, you know like being a soldier but also a college student too. We try to keep them separate but we all live kind of the same lives and its funny when these mix and someone usually gets in trouble, which is why we try and keep it usually within the CNN. It happens though.

So we have this thing too, its kind of vulgar, called the Blue Falcon and the B in Blue stands for Buddy and the F in Falcon stands for…you know…basically and we use that acronym to label or address people who get their friends in trouble. Especially in the military when were doing stuff that we would be evaluated on, the Blue Falcon would be like ‘hey you forgot to do this’ like right in front of everyone and so we would address them as the Blue Falcon. Everyone else then would understand that this guy is like a Buddy uhhhhh, and everyone would understand what that meant. And the person would probably know that they’re the Blue Falcon like someone would say to the person like ‘Hey you’re being a Blue Falcon right now’. It’s kind of a universal military term, like everyone knows what that means. The military is about the group, and they use mass punishment too. So like if one person does something wrong then we all have to do like pushups and so we would call that person who got us all in trouble the Blue Falcon because they screwed their buddies over. In the real world you don’t see much of mass punishment where everyone hates on 1 person for getting everyone in trouble. It’s a specific military thing.

 

Analysis:

Here informant E talks about some of the specific vernacular that the military uses. Some of these acronyms may have come out of the need in the military to do specific things quickly and efficiently.  She explains how it separates the out-group from the in-group and also helps them balance the 2 different sorts of lives they live. The military expects them to be extremely professional while often college students are casual and crude.  These acronyms allow them to remain professional, while alluding to some other crude things, like maybe what the did on the weekend, or even just in the acronyms itself.  She also talks about how they can call out members of the in-group, which actually serves to bring the group closer together. Community and support are extremely important in the military, which explains this strong emphasis on the in-group and not getting their friends in trouble.  The military emphasizes unity and cohesion which is why the term Blue Falcon might be so popular across the military, because someone who is a Blue Falcon is deviating from the norm of unity and should be called out for doing so.