Tag Archives: Texas

Finer than a frog hair split four ways

Age: 19

Text: Finer than a frog hair split four ways

Context: My informant said she heard this saying in rural Texas. She had asked a stranger how they were doing to which they responded “Honey, I’m finer than a frog hair split four ways.” She remembers the person being very upbeat and happy, and they seemed to be having a great day. My informant is from Austin, TX, and claims that she has never heard this saying other than this one time. 

Analysis: I am from Texas myself and have noticed that many Southerners, especially people from the rural south, use many sayings that add emphasis to their speech and attempt to capture the extent to which they mean what they are saying through exaggeration. Not only was this person fine, but they were finer than a frog hair split four ways. My initial reaction to hearing this saying was wondering “Do frogs even have hair?” A quick Google search has confirmed that frogs do not have hair. The comparison of how fine someone is to something so physically fine that it doesn’t even exist is a humorous, nonsensical way of suggesting that the person must be doing extremely fine. This saying exaggerates this even further by splitting the nonexistent thing into four different parts.

Memorate: My Great-Grandparents’ UFO Sighting

Context:

Informant J is a 73 year old Mexican-American man and is the collector’s grandfather. He is from San Jose, California, but his family moved there from parts of Texas and Mexico. For the majority of his life, J was a manager at a regional grocery store, and studied art in college with a focus in jewelry making. J is now retired and his hobbies include guitar playing, metal working, and reworking vintage cars.

Text:

(Please excuse typos, this is an unaltered text message from the informant): “There was an incident that happened when my parents were traveling to Del Rio Texas. They were in the middle of the desert headed for DR when they noticed a bright light shining behind their car they thought it was another car coming up behind them with their high beams on or maybe a bright light from a train. My dad as afraid to pull over for fear that it might be something nefarious. Needless to say they traveled 20 miles or so and they still had the light shining on their car. After traveling a bit farther the light shifted to above the car and  suddenly the light disappeared and everything was dark again. My mom said that she was pregnant with me and they were freaked out about what had occurred. There were a large number of ufo sightings in that area during that period of time. No one could explain what had occurred!”

Interpretation:

My grandpa mentions that this happened to his parents when there were common UFO sightings in the area at the time. Based on what I know about my family, this happened either in 1949 or 1950, right before my grandpa was born. I find it interesting that a bright light alone was enough to convince my great grandparents that a UFO may have been traveling alongside them. This memorate doesn’t involve contact with any actual ‘alien’ creatures or strange technology – just a bright light – but the popularity of alleged UFO sightings in the late 40s and early 50s is definitely at play here. My family members were probably more likely to believe that what they saw was a UFO or alien spaceship because that was a common occurrence in the community around them. A quick google search provides many results for Texas alien sightings in those years. Although this memorate doesn’t reference a specific legend or named figure, aliens in general function similarly to legends – in that there is a negotiation of belief surrounding them and peoples’ ideas about them are influenced by their peers. It’s also notable my grandpa was told this happened while his mother was pregnant with him – he is a staunch believer in the supernatural, as was his mother.

Mangia, y’all

Nationality: Dallas, TX
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Language: English

Text:

A ritualistic saying that acts as performative speech to signal that people may start eating (similar to “bon appetit”).

Context:

The informant comes from an Italian family that currently lives in Dallas, TX. Her family emigrated from Sicily 6 generations ago through Louisiana and settled in South Texas; they have lived in the same city ever since. Her generation is actually the first generation that is not fully Sicilian Italian, because her father is from Nebraska. Members of the family will commonly say this phrase before meals.

Interpretation:

Given the family’s deep connections to both Italy and Texas, both places are fundamentally intrinsic to their family identity. This saying is not only a form of performative speech that instructs people to begin eating, but an indicator of a deeply loyal family history as a source of pride. Saying this phrase ritualistically before eating contextualizes mealtimes as a ritual through which to connect with the family through food, in both the past and present.

The Big D

Nationality: Dallas, TX
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Language: English

Text:

Residents of Dallas refer to it as “the Big D.”

Context:

The informant lived in Dallas for 17 years, and grew up knowing this nickname for her hometown.

Interpretation:

Preliminary research points towards this nickname originating from the song with the same name, “Big D” from the 1956 musical The Most Happy Fella. The name popularized when Bing Crosby recorded the song, and stuck when a columnist at Dallas Morning News titled his column “Big D.” Since then, residents of Dallas have continued to call their city “the Big D” without necessarily knowing the origin of the nickname.

The longevity of the nickname may be more due to its function as a double entendre than the timelessness origins. Though the nickname remains the same, the meaning behind it changes, so that new generations believe their hometown nickname is unironically an epithet for genitalia.

Ghost Story

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Self Employed
Residence: Santa Clarita, California
Performance Date: 04/04/23
Primary Language: English

Context:

My informant is my father, he is 55 years old and he is born and raised in California. He has traveled a lot in his life as he was in the navy for some time and comes from a long line of people who are from Texas and other places. He decided to tell me about a ghost story that he experienced as a kid while he was visiting his grandmother and this is what he said:

Text:

Dad: “When I was about 10 years old, I used to take a trip to Texas every summer. I would fly to Dallas to visit my grandmother, and eventually make my way to Marshall, where my cousins lived. One year, while I was sitting on the couch in Marshall, the rotary dial phone started dialing by itself. It was like someone was using the phones without actually touching it. “

Me: “Was this the first time something like this has happened to you?”

Dad: “Another strange occurrence happened when my cousin and I overheard my aunt talking to someone in her room. But when we went to check, no one was there except for my aunt, who seemed startled to see us. We noticed that there was an indention in the mattress as if someone had been sitting there next to her, but it disappeared as soon as we entered the room. “

Me: “How did this make you feel?”

Dad: “These unexplained events left us puzzled and wondering what could have caused them”

Analysis:

In my analysis, the story that was told to me from an experience my dad had could be considered a memorate. By definition, a memorate is an oral narrative from memory relating a personal experience or a personal narrative involving an encounter with a supernatural being. Although this encounter was unexplained, many supernatural encounters can be unexplained. Additionally, because this happened in Texas, I believe Texas is filled with a lot history and it could be common to experience these types of things there. In terms of folklore, in an article from the Journal of Folklore Research by Ulo Valk, titled “Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore,” Valk elaborates on ghosts as a way to “provide meaning in a chaotic social environment”. Although this interpretation may not make complete sense, it creates an opening for further exploration on the subject of ghostly encounters like this one that happened to my father. As mentioned in this article, ghosts want to maintain traditions and culture, so maybe this space was special in some way.