Tag Archives: saying

That’s So Camp

Nationality: USA
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: Feb. 22, 2023
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

CONTEXT:

A is one of my best friends. She is a senior in high school from my hometown. She enjoys writing poetry as well as knitting.

The context of this piece was during a facetime call in which I asked her to share some pieces of folklore with me, and she referred to this collection as “camp.” I asked her to elaborate on the phrase for the collection and to explain its meaning. 

TEXT:

Me: “Where would you say you got ‘camp’ from?”

A: “I like it a little bit when people don’t initially understand what the hell I’m talking about. And that was one of the phrases where if I said it, people would just be like, ‘What the hell does that even mean?’ I just like things that are very subjective to interpretation. And ‘that’s so camp,’ depending on how I say it, is just something that can be very subjective and it can be an insult or a compliment or just an observation. I’m pretty sure it was after an award ceremony, maybe the Met Gala and the theme was ‘camp.’ That was years ago and I remember being like, ‘That is such a good definition,’ I need to start using that and now I think it’s a staple of my vocabulary.”

Me: “What does it mean to you?”

A: “I feel like it’s very hard to describe verbally. I would say camp is when you can tell someone is trying to do something where there’s a very large amount of effort present, and the execution is more questionable. So like, sometimes outfits are camp in that sometimes they’re good because they’re camp and sometimes they’re bad because they’re camp and it’s just about how you sort of pull it off.”

ANALYSIS:

I also use this term — “camp” tends to refer to things that are a little weird or off-putting, but not always necessarily in a bad way. For example, things that are eccentric are camp. Anything that is camp also tends to be somewhat amusing. They can be artificial or self-consciously ironic. In a sense, it refers to things that are so bad they are good because of the intention. Today, there almost seems to be a revitalization of the appreciation for things that aren’t perfect, and even more so, things that are intentionally imperfect. Irony, especially amongst the younger generation, has taken hold as a point of appreciation. There seems to also be a lack of desire for people to point out that one thing is absolutely cool or uncool, and “camp” is a way to fit in between that. With such a loose definition, it’s easier to judge ambiguously, which can serve a good purpose at a time when our statements are much more highly scrutinized.

Green Frog

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/21/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Text:

Original script: 청개구리

Roman script: chung-geh-goo-ri

Transliteration: Green frog

Full translation (according to performer): Expressing your frustration by calling someone a contrarian

Context:

This saying is inspired by a Korean folktale that explains why frogs croak when it rains. A disobedient frog regrets how burdensome he was when his mother dies. To finally follow her wishes, he buries her near the riverside and cries out for her in fears that she’ll be swept away. In a less tragic light, CL says that her mother often recites this to her when she “didn’t do what she asked for certain things.” An example CL provides is when she pulled an all nighter instead of sleeping, even though her mother advised her to rest. As usual, her mother was proven correct when CL “complained about feeling like I did bad on the test the next day.” Thus, CL’s mother said “청개구리” to express her frustration.

Analysis:

Minor genres can act as forms of discipline or advice. By taking from culturally significant knowledge, the dite holds extra weight than if it were a stand alone saying. Almost like an “I told you so,” certain sayings can reflect broader knowledge that exists outside intimate relationships. A mother’s advice appears much grander when it is connected to a cultural tale or traditional story–the saying exceeds her and carries the weight of the “wisdom of the masses.” The saying universalizes personal experiences, thus considering disobedience an expected aspect of child development. Folklore doesn’t necessarily illustrate how to live life–it can also be used to discourage behavior and tell a cautionary tale. Thus, this saying is applicable to a multitude of situations: its moral and disciplinary motive can be used for various situations of disobedience or hypocrisy. Furthermore, it reinstates the mother-child dynamic and confirms the mother’s superior level of experience and life knowledge. However, the tale that inspires this imposes restrictions as to who can be the performer and who can be the audience: it can only be told from a mother to a child, not vice versa. Otherwise, the moral implications would fall short. Motherhood is prevalent in various forms of folklore–symbols, characters, and metaphors immortalize the mother-child bond. Even when their relationship appears ruptured, mother and child are eternally united through folklore.

I hit my head on a piece of cornbread

Nationality: Black
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 16 February 2023
Primary Language: English

Context: CR is a black student at USC, currently a sophomore. They and their family are originally from Houston. The informant told me about their experience after class while we were discussing the pieces of folklore we’d picked up during our lives. The saying they talked about would normally be performed by their father whenever they and their siblings hit their heads.

Text: “Okay so like growing up my… like me and my siblings would always like hit our heads like maybe on the top of our bunk beds or the roof of a car or something, and my dad would always say like “Oh no! Like I hit my head on a piece of cornbread!” And then we would just laugh instead of cry. And it was just a way that he would get us to be playful and laugh instead of focus on our pain. And he would always model it for us too. Yeah, just “I hit my head on a piece of cornbread.” There’s very much a rhythmic element to it and a rhyme, like if you say it the wrong way, it won’t be right.

“I hit my head on a piece of cornbread.”


Thoughts/Analysis: I’ve never heard of “I hit my head on a piece of cornbread,” but I’ve encountered similar sayings across my life. It makes me think of the Spanish saying sana sana, colita de rana which is also used to pacify kids after they get hurt. Soothing children after injury seems to unite a lot of childhood sayings. After all, the experience is universal. In this specific instance, though, part of the comforting nature of the saying seems to lie in its humor: the imagery of hitting one’s head on a piece of cornbread—something soft and spongy—versus whatever one hits their head on, seems to create dissonance and a disconnect from their current reality of pain.

Potato, Potato

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Nationality: American
Age: 26
Occupation: AI Driven Marketing Consultant
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: February 2023
Primary Language: English

“Potato, potato” (po-tay-to, po-tah-to)

Genre: modern proverb/idiom

Context/Source: An early childhood memory signified by his (26 year old man) initial confusion with the meaning of the sentiment. 

Analysis: The simplicity of this two-word sentiment confounds it’s meaning. Hearing it for the first time as a young child, the source wondered if there were two names for the same vegetable, or two vegetables with the same name. Over the course of a few weeks he speculated that maybe it was various regional accents that caused the discrepancy in pronunciation, or maybe there was no single way to pronounce it. The more you think about it… potato potato, tomato, tomato, the more the meaning is obscured, the less distinguishable the words become. It shows there’s more than one way for individuals to arrive at the same idea. Though playful, it embodies that, despite language and culture, a potato is a potatoe. 

After further research, I found the idiom seems to be derived from the song “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, written for the film Shall We Dance, released in 1937.

Metaphorical saying for “Doing Bad”

Nationality: American
Age: 19-20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 02/16/2023
Primary Language: English
  1. “Screwed the Pooch”
  2. I did an interview with a classmate in my Anthropology class, with an emphasis surrounding folklore and he revealed to me a saying he heard from a friend in high school. “My buddy in high school, this guy I know Jake Harris he really fumbled some science work, something in this class we had together and he’s like man… I really screwed the pooch and I thought that was hilarious. He’s from Simsbury, Connecticut. And I don’t know where he got that or anything, but I heard that and thought it was pretty funny. [How old were you?] At the time, we had to be freshman or sophomores in high school, 15 or 16. ”
  3. My interpretation of this metaphorical saying is that it is simply comedic. I have heard this before, I think I’ve even heard in a movie in the 2000s. It is often times, in my view at least, something that would be said in a stereo typical high school movie. Additionally, from my interpretation and knowledge of this saying it means to mess up something or make an embarrassing mistake of some sort. Moreover, I believe this saying has been around for quite sometime now, but I have not been around many people who say it, so there could be an Northeastern thing.