Tag Archives: proverbs

You Don’t Start Catching Fish Until You Start Bleeding

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

Informant: “I know I’ve said this multiple times when I’m out fishing with someone, especially if we haven’t caught many fish yet, is ‘Welp, The reason we’re not catching any fish is because I’m not bleeding yet.’ Well, either ‘not bleeding’ or ‘haven’t hurt myself yet’. And if while I’m trudging along hiking to go somewhere fishing and I slip and fall and get all scuffed up or bruised or hurt or whatever, I think to myself, ‘ok, well now I’m going to catch fish because I’ve hurt myself’. And so these are things I’ve said many times over the years fishing, and I’d say that this is actually a true thing…most of the time. And part of the reason why this has ended up being a true thing is that you have a better chance of catching fish if you’re fishing in a part of the river that’s way harder to get to. Because, the average person is probably a little bit lazy, and they’re also not going to take risks. And so if you drive up to some spot and you get out of your car and you walk right down to the river and fish there, that’s probably where like a million people have fished. But if you’re like walking up the narrow steep river canyon, or trying to go down some spot where there’s not a path, and just try to go cross country to get to the river, if it’s really hard to get there, then hardly anyone or perhaps no one has fished there before. When you get to those spots, and I’ve been to a number of those spots in my life, the fishing can be just absolutely fantastic.

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 Washington and Oregon (where he hopes to someday retire so he can “go fly fishing every single day for the rest of [his] life”) and currently lives in the Midwestern United States.

Collector Analysis: In much the same way as there is folklore associated with different professions, there is also folklore associated with different hobbies; in this case, fly fishing. This particular proverb is interesting in that it implies a sort of balance in nature, and that everything has a cost. Specifically, if you want to catch fish, you have to prove that you really want them by bleeding a little. Of course, the informant’s explanation as to why this particular piece of wisdom is more correct than not is spot on. Also, humans tend to have an interesting relationship with pain. This collector has experienced independent times in which, when receiving a mild injury while performing a task, will think ‘well, I knew I was going to injure myself while performing this task, and now that I’ve injured myself, I don’t have to worry about it anymore. This particular piece of folklore is very probably just an extension of a similar chain of thought.

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.

Long Handled Spoon

Nationality: American
Age: 40's
Occupation: Head Track and Field coach at USC
Residence: Los Angles area
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English

The informant was born and raised in Colorado. She all her life has used proverbs that her grandmother taught her to develop relationships. Her grandmother helped in assisting her by giving her proverbs to live by that apply to any situation and any human.

“feed them with a long handled spoon”

Informant…

“My grandma use to tell me Feed them with a Long Handled Spoon when she said this it was usually in regards to when I would have a fight with someone, if one of my friends really hurt my feelings, or even now while I am in my profession she will use it if I don’t necessarily like someone I am working with. It means, if someone does you wrong, you deal with them, you are still nice to them, but you don’t have to trust them anymore or let them get close to you. My grandma really was big on how people interact with each other and she thought that if someone was going to violate you and your trust, you keep them in front of you so they can’t stab you in the back again, you are still nice to them, and you deal with them when you have to, but you donut rust them enough to let them get close to you.”

Analysis…

When the informant was telling me her proverb, I could tell that she was excited to tell me about it and share with me what her grandmother had previously shared with her. This information the informant uses whenever she feels like she needs guidelines on how to act of how to feel she remembers the proverbs that her grandmother taught her and tries to apply them.

This proverb I connect with the proverbs keep your enemies in front of you and keep your enemies closer. I think that I associate the three because the al have something to do with people who have done you wrong or you don’t like for whatever reason. Differences that I can point our is the informants proverb says if anyone wrongs you to keep them at a distance and don’t allow them to have a chance to be close to you. Whereas the keep your enemies closer that I mention says to keep the people who have wronged you closer than anyone else. They are different because one thinks you should let them no where near you because they will wrong you again and the other believes you should keep them close so the won’t wrong you again. The point of both of these is trying to generate a way to prevent enabling harm to yourself from others but from two different perspectives. The informant’s proverb is similar to keep your enemies in front of you because then they can’t stab you in the back again, so it is protecting yourself without being close to someone who has wronged you. I was glad that I was able to make sense of this proverb and have my own thought process behind it.

 

Bones

Nationality: American
Age: 40's
Occupation: Head Track and Field coach at USC
Residence: Los Angeles area
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English

The informant was born and raised in Colorado. She all her life has used proverbs that her grandmother taught her to develop relationships. Her grandmother helped in assisting her by giving her proverbs to live by that apply to any situation and any human.

“A dog that brings a bone takes a bone”

Informant…

When I was a lot younger and still in my adolescent years, I would try and keep up with the latest drama and gossip. I was all in his business or her business and always had the latest gossip. So and so would tell me something about someone and I would talk to my grandma like oh so and so said that she’s been doing a,b,c and my grandma would respond with A dog that brings a bone, takes a bone. At first the didn’t really mean much to me, I had to experience it on my own to have a full understanding of what she meant. A dog that takes a bone brings a bone to me means that if someone is coming to you with gossip, they are going to leave with something about you and talk about you to other people the same way the were talking to you about so and so. I just always have kept this in the back of my mind when someone is gossiping  about someone else to me. I realize that if i egg in that conversation, there might be something that I said that would give the person a bone to run off with. I guess what I get from this is be aware of conversations you engage in and how much you trust to tell people.”

Analysis…

A dog that brings a bone takes a bone. I haven’t heard this before, so it is new to me. When to informant was explaining it to me I think she could sense my confusion probably by my facial expression and thankfully she continued to elaborate until she thought I could make sense of it. I think this just goes along with the proverbs about being careful who you trust and spend your time around. Not everyone in this world has good intentions and I think that in informant’s grandmother kew that and she was wise enough to share them with her granddaughter to hopefully help her in life. A dong that brings a bone takes a bone puts an all new perception of people and relationships into my head. It makes sense that a gossip who gossips to you is most likely gossiping about you, so it is important to choose carefully who you also yourself to be around.

Rise and Shine

Nationality: Samoan American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student Athlete
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 23, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Samoan

The informant’s family originated in Samoa, his parents were born and raised there before traveling and moving into the United States. He takes many visits to Samoa and is very in touch with his Samoan heritage and culture. He shared some common folklore with me that he could think of off of the top of his head. 

“Ole manu e muamua ala nate maua le anufe”

Informant…

“Something my parents expressed to me when I was a kid goes:

Ole manu e muamua ala nate maua le anufe meaning: The early bird gets the worm.

I can apply this to most every aspect of my life, so it has really  helped me mature as I’ve grown. To me, well you can have your own interpretation of it but to me, it means literally the one who rises early will have the most success. I translate this into meaning that if you work hard, and out work everyone and anyone you will be rewarded and be just fine in life. I use this with my school work, with football, with almost about anything. I believe that everything takes hard work and nothing good is going to be easy to get hence, Ole manu e muamua ala nate maua le anufe. ”

Analysis…

The statement “The early bird gets the worm” is nothing new for our culture. This statement I have heard by my parents, mentors, teachers, coaches, you name it almost anyone (old enough to know its meaning) has heard this proverb before. It essentially means to most people the person who arrives to any location, event, opportunity first has the best chance for success in that area. The informant meant in his translation that he makes she he works the hardest so he can essentially “arrive first” and have the best chance for success.

It is interesting that a very common proverb in America would be used in another culture as well. As phrases.org.uk says, “The early bird gets the worm” originates from the Latin phrase Carpe diem which means “seize the day”. Both of these proverbs are advice on how to attack our days and make the most of our lives by working hard.