Tag Archives: saying

Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult

Nationality: African-American (Ivory Coast/Scottish/Welsh)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shoreline, WA
Performance Date: 4/5/17
Primary Language: English

Context: My roommate discovered this meme one day, and it prompted a discussion about the various levels of depth it reached.

Background: My roommate is a self-described “conveyor of fine memes” and has a hobby of collecting, creating, and sharing Internet memes.

The Meme: The meme (attached to this post) is a play on the phrase “easy peasy lemon squeezy.” The phrased is reworked in a text explanation that laments the fact that things are not “easy peasy lemon squeezy” as once believed, but are in fact “difficult difficult lemon difficult.” This explanation is accompanied by the image of a middle-aged woman furiously gripping a laptop in both hands and biting into it.

Analysis: This became a folklore discussion as a surprise, as the further my roommate and I discussed it, the more it seemed to work as a piece of folk speech. “Difficult difficult lemon difficult” is definitely an evolution of the saying “easy peasy lemon squeezy,” which itself has an origin that feels meaningless in the context the phrase has since gained. The specific discovery of the newly-changed saying also has the context of being in meme form, memes being one of the more common areas of unauthored expression in the 21st century.

Fatherly Advice

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, OR
Performance Date: 3/13/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese (Mandarin)

Context: I collected this from a friend on a trip over Spring Break, after he’d heard me talking about folklore with another friend I was collecting from.

Background: A piece of advice in the form of a proverb my friend’s dad taught him to live by.

Phrase: The most important thing is to think. The second most important thing is let other people think.

Analysis: The piece is simple, really just some advice that’s important for parents to give to their kids. My friend specified this was something his father told him every time he “did something stupid,” but I appreciate that the proverb refers to the world beyond yourself and stresses the importance of respecting other peoples’ minds.

“When you know a thing, allow that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, allow that you do not know it. This is knowledge.”

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: financial executive
Residence: Winchester, MA
Performance Date: 3/17/17
Primary Language: English

 

“So in other words, knowledge– know it alls are kind of… stupid and the fact that they think they know it all.  Really knowledgeable and smart people are those that are open– they open their mind to learning… all the time.  And so if you don’t know something then you say, “Oh, tell me about that!” you know?  You don’t just act like you know it already.”

 

Conclusion:

 

This was told to me by my Dad’s friend, Evan.  He says his mother used to tell him little sayings like this all the time.  He says that this one stuck with him more because he’s found it to be the most applicable in the different stages of his life.  He explains that the jist of this saying is that you have to accept your lack of knowledge on a subject before you can really start learning about it.

 

“Lift your feet up when you drive over a bridge.”

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 27
Occupation: banker
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/16/17
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish

This little saying was told to me by one of my buddy’s older brothers, Emilio.  Their family grew up in Irvine, CA and to get to school everyday, they had to drive over a bridge.  Everyday, throughout elementary and middle school, their mother would tell them to lift their feet up when they drove over the bridge.  He recalls his mom telling him pick up his feet and look out the window because they were ‘flying’.  Unfortunately, Emilio’s mother passed away a few years ago.  He says when he drives over a bridge now and lifts up his feet, it gives him a fond memory of his mother.

 

Driving rule in Jamaica

Nationality: Croatian, American
Age: 49
Occupation: water polo referee
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/24/2017
Primary Language: Croatian
Language: English

TK is my dad. Before moving to the United States his previous job required him to travel a lot. Luckily he enjoys traveling.

 

This past winter break the whole family gathered in New York and for New Years went on a family vacation to Jamaica. On the flight my dad and uncle shared their stories of their previous visits to Jamaica. On TK’s last visit to Jamaica he was in Kingston and one of the taxi drivers told his an interesting saying about driving in Jamaica.

 

“He told me that when it comes to driving in Jamaica there is one major rule you need to know if you plan on driving. “The left side is the right side, and the right side is suicide.””

 

As in the UK, traffic on Jamaica travels on the left in right hand drive vehicles. So if you drove on the right side, which is the wrong side haha, you will most likely have a car crash; thus being the suicide side. When we landed in Montego Bay the driver to the hotel resort told us the same saying. So obviously it is a popular saying there and how wouldn’t it be it rhymes, it’s catchy, funny and true.