Informant: “Scratch your nose, you’ll kiss a fool”

The informant is a Caucasian male from northern California. He is currently a freshman at USC studying business administration. He is also a member of a fraternity.

The informant said he learned this saying from his mother when he was a young boy. The informant explained that the saying meant that “if you got an itchy nose the next person that you kissed was a fool.”

This saying was meaningful to the informant because he had fond memories surrounding the lore. He stated that “I always remember that when I was a kid like I would get an itchy nose and my mom would always say it to me and then give me a kiss on the cheek, or when she got an itchy nose she would do it to me.” Thus, the lore would serve as a way to establish rapport between the informant and his mother through gentle teasing.

This saying is somewhat common as it can be easily found on the internet on numerous websites, and there are many other variants about scratching your nose. Some are quite similar and others are not. The more similar variants state that if your nose itches you are going to “shake hands with a fool,” or “meet a fool.” Others not so similar versions maintain that if your nose itches it means “someone is thinking of you,” “someone loves you,” you are going to “have a quarrel with someone,” “you’re confused about something,” or “a visitor is coming.”