Tag Archives: money

A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

Nationality: American
Age: 50s
Occupation: Banker
Residence: Shorewood, Minnesota
Performance Date: 4/26/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: None

Informant: “One thing that I remember my grandfather [S] saying to me multiple times, it was ‘[Informant’s name], a penny saved is a penny earned!’ And, so he grew up in the great depression, and that was some really tough times in America, and he saw all the hard things his parents had to do, and he as a kid had to do, and that caused people in his generation to feel like, if you find a way to save money, you know, not spend money you don’t need to spend, then that’s as good as earning extra money because that meant that you had that much money still available to you. I remember when I was little, we would go to California to visit him, and everyday they would be looking in the newspaper, cutting out coupons, looking for what the deal was, looking at the ads… basically figuring out everything for everything they were going to buy, where they were going to buy it from. If they were going to go out to dinner, they would make their dinner decision based off of who had a special, who had a coupon, who had a discount, those sorts of things, with the mindset of if they were going to spend money, but there’s a way to figure out how to spend less, then that’s just as good as making more money at your jobs. I find that I tend to think in the same way, where if I can figure out a way to spend less money, then it’s just like I just made more money from my job.”

Informant is a middle aged banker who frequently travels internationally on business, and is a father of three. He identifies as ‘American’, although his mother is of Czech heritage. He grew up in Oregon and Washington and currently lives in the Midwestern United States.

Collector Analysis: This particular proverb serves to provide financial advice, in this case the importance of spending money wisely. It is interesting how nowadays this particular proverb has almost a different meaning to it based on the fact that a penny today is considered to be nearly valueless, whereas in the time period where my informant first heard this proverb, pennies were not an insignificant amount of money. In this regard, the proverb may not have aged particularly well, but it is still a valuable piece of advice regardless.

Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels

Nationality: American
Age: 50s
Occupation: Banker
Residence: Shorewood, Minnesota
Performance Date: 4/26/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: None

Informant: “One saying that my Grandparents use to always tell me was…’Don’t take any wooden nickels’. This was this weird thing where I didn’t even know what that meant, I didn’t even know what a wooden nickel was. I think this goes back to tougher times in the U.S. where there were places that as part of your change or what have you, they would give you a wooden nickel, not a real nickel. It was some sort of promotion or thing like that where instead of giving you the real change which would be a few cents, they would instead give you a wooden nickel, and you could take that wooden nickel and go back to that place of business and use the wooden nickel as if it was five cents. Except… a real copper penny and a real nickel, you could use anywhere, and if you or I had a real copper penny or a real nickel from back in the 20’s or the 30’s today, not only would it be worth at least its face value, but it would be worth a lot more than that! The wooden nickel, unless there’s some collector out there, the wooden nickel is worthless. So the idea was as you’re buying things from people, as you’re entering into business arrangements, don’t get duped, don’t sell for anything less than being paid real money, because you don’t want to be cheated or gypped, and that wooden nickel might turn out to be worthless, so it would be foolish to take it… I think my grandfather was really just trying to pass down his ideals on how you needed to be smart with your money to [me], careful with your money, and not get duped. Because it’s hard to make money, and if you lose the money you have, especially when he grew up and lived through [the Great Depression] it was really bad if you lost your money. There was no safety net, your whole family might be having problems, and so you had to be careful. What’s really interesting was he always told me to never take any wooden nickels, and later in life he gave me some of his coins from his coin collection, and included in the coin collection he gave me was a wooden nickel.

Informant is a middle aged banker who frequently travels internationally on business, and is a father of three. He identifies as ‘American’, although his mother is of Czech heritage. He grew up in Oregon and Washington and currently lives in the Midwestern United States.

Collector Analysis: The first significant thing to consider is the fact that this is a proverb about money, told by an individual who works in the finance field, which is probably a bit telling in and of itself. This collector thought that the informant’s explanation of and analysis of this proverb was interesting. Previously, this proverb has been interpreted as if the person taking the wooden nickel did not know that it was a wooden nickel, and thus the meaning of this proverb we be “don’t let yourself get tricked”. However, the knowledge that this proverb originated in a context where the person taking the wooden nickel knew that it was a wooden nickel changes the meaning somewhat. Specifically, the meaning then becomes something more along the lines of “never take a promise of payment when you could instead take the actual payment”.

For another usage of this proverb, see cited work below:
M.S. Clark “Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels”, Thorndike Press, 2003.

Dung Dreams

Nationality: Korean
Age: 50
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Cupertino, CA
Performance Date: 3/17/2014
Primary Language: Korean

Dung Dreams

똥싸는거는, 옛잘에 소가 똥을싸잖아, 소가 길에있는것들 다 막 먹고 똥을싸. 사람들은 지나가다가 길에 많이 이것저것 잃어버리잖아. 그래서 그것들을 소가 먹고 똥을싸. 소 똥에 엽전 (coin)이 나오는거야. 소 똥을 뒤집으면 밑에 엽전있을수있는거지. 똥이 좋다는 얘기는 소 똥이야 사람 똥이 아니고. 오직 소 똥.

 Long time ago, everyone had cows, everyone who farmed. The cows would walk along side the road, the same road as humans did. When humans traveled, they naturally dropped things here and there. The cows would eat this up, whatever it was. And so when it pooped, there was a chance that yeobjeon, coins (the form of money back then) could turn up. That’s why dreams with cow dung are a sign of good luck – not human poop but only cow dung.

Pigs Bring Wealth

Nationality: Korean
Age: 40
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Sunnyvale, CA
Performance Date: 3/16/2014
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Pigs Bring Wealth

The Informant:

She was an elderly who came to the U.S. in the early 1990s. Although Christian, she says she still believes in this superstition a little bit.

 

돼지 꿈구면 행운이다.

돼지는 한국에서, 이 뭐냐, 돈이야. 옛잘에 모든 사업 아니면 일하는분들은 돼지머리를 잘라서 절을 하는거야. 절하다가 코에다가 돈 집어넣고, 입에도 넣고, 귀에다 넣고, 아므튼 늘수있는데에다 넣는거야. 

If you dream of a pig it’s good luck.

Long ago, a pig is a form of income. It is equal to money or wealth. People who ran businesses or stores would cut off a pig’s head, lay it on a table, and bow down to it. While bowing down, as a sign of worship, they would stick money in its nose, mouth, ears, anywhere on the head that they could. They did this so that they would succeed and become rich.

 

Canadian Tradition: Money in the Birthday Cake

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 15, 2013
Primary Language: English

Contextual Data: We had gone out to celebrate my friend’s birthday the day before, and just out of curiosity, I asked her if there were any specific ways that her family celebrated her birthday. She mentioned that she was Canadian and there were some specific quirky things that her family did that were part of larger Canadian traditions. I asked her to explain one, and the following is an exact transcript of her response.

“Okay, so I’m Canadian. All my relatives are Canadian. I was born in Canada. Um, and there’s lots of, like, kooky Canadian traditions that after I moved to the States I realized, like, ‘This isn’t something normal people do.’ Like everyone doesn’t do that here, like, American people don’t know what I’m talking about—whatever. So, um, one of the things I had, like, growing up was, um, on my birthday—or all the birthdays in our family, basically—my mom would make, um, a Layer Cake. So it might be, like, a chocolate cake or whatever. Um, in the cake she would put money. And so she would take coins—wash them, obviously [Laughs]—That’s so… You would usually take, like, um—in Canada the money’s sort of like, you have Loonies and Toonies, so dollar coins and two dollar coins, so there would be like a few of those—it’d be like a really big treat. And then there’d be lots of like quarters and nickels and dimes and stuff. And she’d take these and wash them off and wrap them in wax paper [Presses hands together, miming sandwiching coins between two pieces of paper]. And then when the cake was done, she would take the two layers and insert the coins straight through the cake. Um, and then, put the icing over it and cover all the holes, so you didn’t know, like, where the money was. And, um…Also, there would be another little object—we usually used a button. And so that would be in the cake—with the money. And that would be in one piece of the cake, so only one person would get it. And usually, I think, in the tradition—like I know so many. I think like, this isn’t just my family. It’s Canadian—or probably not all of Canada, but like a big tradition where my relatives talked about this when they were little, too. Like my grandparents and stuff. So I think traditionally, like if you get the button or whatever else was in there, um, you’re an old maid. Or like, ‘Bad luck for seven years’ or something. But obviously for us as kids, my mom changed it to like, ‘It’s a birthday! If you get the button you’re lucky!’ And it’s like good luck if you’re the one who didn’t get the money and got the button, and um, yeah. It’s kind of just like a fun way that, um… It was like really easy. It’s not a lot of work to, like, put money in the cake, but it was like really hot—everyone loved it. I remember as a kid, um, after I moved to the States, when, like, I was hanging out with American kids, they were just like, ‘What? Like, I’ve never had money in a cake before. I want my mom to do this.’ And it was kind of… It was cool. It was really cool.”

– End Transcript – 

When I asked my friend why people might do this, she said that it just kind of seemed like a fun way for people to celebrate a person—it contributes to that air of festivity as everyone walks away from the celebration with a sort of “party favor.”

Part of the reason for performing this tradition, though, also seems to be the element of superstition and  the idea of a birthday as a  transition into a new year, particularly with the good luck/bad luck surrounding the “other object”; people will either be fortunate or cursed in the upcoming year. In particular, in her family, in which the button is seen as a sign of good luck, this tradition also seems to be a way of encouraging people to look forward to the unknown—they might not know what they’re going to get, but more often than not, it is something fortunate and worthwhile.

She says it is a fun surprise that her family still performs with her younger brother, but part of the reason it has seemed so weird to her American friends is because they point out that it is kind of a choking hazard. She can’t imagine it taking off in America because it is such a litigious society, and the tradition could be seen as one that endangers children, though she thinks that misses the point of it being about the fun, “everybody gets to participate in the celebration” aspect of it.