Speaker 1: Hello friends, Chuck here with our Saturday Select pick. This
Speaker 1: is all the way back from February. Remember that being
Speaker 1: a very good day. Remember being happy that day because
Speaker 1: we recorded a podcast about folklore and it was great
Speaker 1: and a lot of fun. And it's called what Is Folklore?
Speaker 1: And I think you'll enjoy it on the Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 1: So queue it up and get going right here, right now.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: josh Joshua Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant. Jerry
Speaker 1: is over there, just Jerry uh, and that's stuff you
Speaker 1: should know that. She has a new sip gone out
Speaker 1: on the FX called just Jerry. It's suddenly Jerry. Um,
Speaker 1: how you doing. I'm fine as well told me to intrude,
Speaker 1: just checking. I'm excited about this. When I first read
Speaker 1: our article, I was a little bit like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a little unwieldy because it's so folklore. It's just
Speaker 1: it's an amorphous. As it turns out, it's everything, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. But then you sent um, what was that
Speaker 1: other good article from? Actually we should shout that out.
Speaker 1: It was from a I think the University of Louisiana
Speaker 1: or something like that. They have a folk life folklore department,
Speaker 1: and it was basically we we stumbled upon some unit
Speaker 1: for teachers to teach what folklore is and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: it works for us, super helpful. Yeah, it was very helpful.
Speaker 1: It definitely. It took a lot of this amorphous stuff
Speaker 1: that was in our article and chipped away at the
Speaker 1: edges and gave it a little more shape. You know, agreed, So, um,
Speaker 1: you did kind of hit it on the head. It's
Speaker 1: it's kind of like um, nailing jelly to the wall
Speaker 1: defining what folklore is because it is so much that
Speaker 1: phrases folklore. If if it isn't just me saying it,
Speaker 1: if I share it and now other people say it,
Speaker 1: it could become stuff you should know, folklore, oral oral folklore.
Speaker 1: Did you make that up? It was I think I've
Speaker 1: heard it before. Okay, so that's folklore. Yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: so it's a it's a variation though of Um, what
Speaker 1: else did I hear? Oh? Yeah, we were talking about
Speaker 1: the the nuclear fusion reactor where they were saying that
Speaker 1: keeping plasma contained is kind of like trying to hold
Speaker 1: jelly in a bunch of rubber bands. That's a nerd
Speaker 1: science folklore. That's what inspired me to say, nailing jelly
Speaker 1: to the wall. I like that. It seems like it
Speaker 1: really sums it up. So folklore. Yeah, I found this
Speaker 1: other definition I thought was pretty good, which is, uh,
Speaker 1: traditional art, literature, knowledge and practice that is disseminated largely
Speaker 1: through oral communication and behavioral example. Uh. And then this
Speaker 1: was the key for me. Things that people traditionally believe,
Speaker 1: do no make and say in other words, everything, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, everything that that's that's about as
Speaker 1: good a definition as you're gonna find. One of the
Speaker 1: problems with studying folklore is that there are so many
Speaker 1: definitions out there. Apparently folklorists, who are people who study folklore. UM,
Speaker 1: I don't like to be too judge e. It's kind
Speaker 1: of part and parcel with their um their field of study.
Speaker 1: You don't judge stuff, you just collect information. The problem
Speaker 1: is is that they've also just kind of collected definitions
Speaker 1: for folklore along the way, and there isn't one set
Speaker 1: definition that's accepted by everybody. Yeah, a folklore collected stuff.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's stupid. It wouldn't It would be
Speaker 1: a good Why are you guys doing that? That's a
Speaker 1: good TV show, the bad folk folkloreist. And I might
Speaker 1: say folk here in there because I mispronounced that word
Speaker 1: often and how are you saying? Well, a lot of
Speaker 1: times I'll say the l in fact, up until about
Speaker 1: a year ago when someone wrote in was a stupid
Speaker 1: it's pronounced folk like f o k folk and not folk.
Speaker 1: But the weird thing is is like I hear the
Speaker 1: l missing when I hear folk, weird, that's some sort
Speaker 1: of like I don't hear fo k, Like it's clear
Speaker 1: to me that there's an fo l k in there.
Speaker 1: You hear the silence. It's a great word. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. It is beautiful. Um. And another thing too
Speaker 1: that we should point out that folklore is love to
Speaker 1: point out is that um, it is not and should
Speaker 1: not be associated with being backward or old timey or uneducated.
Speaker 1: Like I think a lot of people have that connotation
Speaker 1: in their heads, that folklore is like the hillbilly on
Speaker 1: the porch, you know, when their homespun wisdoms, and it
Speaker 1: can be that, but it's it's it's not that at all,
Speaker 1: Like it's not just that, right. Um. A really good
Speaker 1: example that contradicts that is, um, Snopes. Snopes dot com
Speaker 1: is basically a clearinghouse of modern folklore. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: never really thought about that. You know, Um the Nigerian
Speaker 1: prince scam, that's folklore. Yeah, it sure is. Emoticons even
Speaker 1: are considered now a form of um verbal communication verbal folklore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like you said, it's everything. And the reason it's
Speaker 1: everything is because, um, it comes out of groups. Like
Speaker 1: if I just have a habit, you know where Um,
Speaker 1: I keep a rubber band twisted around my finger until
Speaker 1: it turns purple, and then I'll take it off for
Speaker 1: half an hour and then do it again. That's just
Speaker 1: some weird habit. That's not folklore. Folklore is something that's
Speaker 1: shared between a group. Yeah, and uh, those groups can
Speaker 1: be like almost anything the I think them. That great
Speaker 1: article you sent and that says neighborhoods, communities, and regions,
Speaker 1: but also religious groups, families, occupations, gender like pretty much
Speaker 1: any grouping, enthusiast, hobbyists, anything you can think of that
Speaker 1: you can group more than two people together. It can
Speaker 1: be a folk group exactly. You can have like a
Speaker 1: Catholic dockyard worker who is also a member of an
Speaker 1: RC playing club. Yeah, who also is a member of
Speaker 1: a book club at the local library. Right, So that
Speaker 1: one person is going to be a member of all
Speaker 1: those different folk groups, and all those folk groups are
Speaker 1: gonna write their own folklore, true it. Uh, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. That's another good thing to point out is
Speaker 1: you're not just in one group. You have you spanned many,
Speaker 1: many groups. And for instance, I have family folklore. Uh,
Speaker 1: we have probably occupational folklore, you know, the old podcaster
Speaker 1: folklore for us and our colleagues. Uh, and my gender
Speaker 1: and my age and uh religious affiliation growing up, like,
Speaker 1: we all have many many groups and subgroups that we
Speaker 1: fall into, right, and we get our information from that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think has been tricky
Speaker 1: about defining folklore is that there's not it's not obvious
Speaker 1: necessarily what folklore is for not at first blush, but
Speaker 1: if you go and read some of the people who
Speaker 1: study it. Um. The idea of folklore is that one
Speaker 1: of the main things it does is it reinforces membership
Speaker 1: in a group. It makes you feel special for being
Speaker 1: part of that group, an insider um. And then it
Speaker 1: also um reinforces the norms of that group. Like folklore
Speaker 1: is based on basically norms, customs, traditions, things that the
Speaker 1: members of the group have said. This is what you
Speaker 1: know we identify with. Yeah, and not always too um,
Speaker 1: as that teaching site points out, not always reinforcing those norms,
Speaker 1: sometimes overturning those norms. Yeah. Like a good way to
Speaker 1: overturn the norm is to take an existing norm and
Speaker 1: turn it on its ear, because it makes it really
Speaker 1: approachable to the other people in your folk group. They
Speaker 1: understand what you're doing very clearly, and it gives them
Speaker 1: a different perspective, right or seeing the traditional channels. Yeah, like, uh,
Speaker 1: I think one example I saw somewhere was taking a
Speaker 1: traditional folk song maybe and adding verses to it to
Speaker 1: spend its meaning to the opposite, perhaps like Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: he's famous for stealing things. Or Jimmy Page. Uh oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you heard that song the Zeppelin or the Yesterday
Speaker 1: Way to Heaven lawsuit? No? No, who whose song was it? Originally?
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name. I mean, this is not news.
Speaker 1: It's been around for a while, but um yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they've been sued. Uh. It was a group that
Speaker 1: opened up for for Zeppelin on an early tour and
Speaker 1: supposedly played this song, and I think Zeppelin has I
Speaker 1: haven't looked at it up lately, but I think they
Speaker 1: have defeated the suit. But when you hear the song,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that sounds a little bit like the
Speaker 1: opening bit to Stairway to Happen. So it was like
Speaker 1: the musical the music. It wasn't like any of the
Speaker 1: layer that that opening guitar strumming pattern, um uh was
Speaker 1: pretty darn similar. But um, as any musician will tell you,
Speaker 1: everybody steals. There's only so many variations of chords and
Speaker 1: picking patterns that you can do. And uh, it's just
Speaker 1: part of the rich tradition of music is to nick
Speaker 1: things respectfully, not you know, not rightbusters, I want a
Speaker 1: new drug kind of steeling. Yeah, I mean that's when
Speaker 1: your lawsuits come up. Um, it's not just music that
Speaker 1: there's that long tradition of stealing um or nicking or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to euphemism. It's literature is very much
Speaker 1: the same way. There's something like five or ten themes
Speaker 1: and all of literature and everything else is just basically
Speaker 1: a variation of them. And that's One of the things
Speaker 1: that folklore uh are folk folklorists have learned through studying
Speaker 1: folklore is that we humans share what can be called
Speaker 1: basically a common imagination. That humans across time and space, um,
Speaker 1: all have a a like a a certain number of
Speaker 1: slots of looking at the world. Certain things in the
Speaker 1: world capture the human imagination in a similar way in
Speaker 1: all different parts of the world, and we tend to
Speaker 1: use similar explanations for them. So you'll have independently evolving
Speaker 1: folklore among groups who've never met before, UM that seek
Speaker 1: to explain or have a story about something that is
Speaker 1: just kind of out there in the environment. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good point, um. One of the examples of that
Speaker 1: is UH, in folklore stories are frogs and toads can
Speaker 1: be found, and all kinds of old stories and all
Speaker 1: cultures all over the world. That I mean, it's possible
Speaker 1: too if you're close to one another, like uh, Korea
Speaker 1: and China may have stories to overlap one another just
Speaker 1: through a common geographical boundary. But stuff like frogs and
Speaker 1: toads will pop up, you know, let's say in Europe
Speaker 1: or medieval Europe or in Asia like places aren't even
Speaker 1: close to one another where it's inexplicable basically, right, and
Speaker 1: they'll share like a similar um personality or something in
Speaker 1: the story. So like frogs and toads are commonly thought
Speaker 1: of as shape shifting tricksters. Yeah, and I think, UM,
Speaker 1: this article points out that that's probably because they go
Speaker 1: from tadpole to frog or toad and they change themselves physically.
Speaker 1: So it's um, you know, the old dummies back in
Speaker 1: the day, they would just use that obvious. Obviously they
Speaker 1: can become human too, since they go from tadpole to
Speaker 1: frog exactly like the frog prince. And you you mentioned
Speaker 1: also UM shared regional characteristics that are most likely the
Speaker 1: result of stories making it from one group to another
Speaker 1: crossing borders. But among groups that are close together, and
Speaker 1: UM that example you gave of East Asia, UM, Japan
Speaker 1: and CRE Thailand, China, they all have UM. They the
Speaker 1: idea that there's a rabbit in the moon and he's
Speaker 1: using a mortar and pestle. And what that would be
Speaker 1: is a motif. Like all of them have the shared
Speaker 1: idea that there's a rabbit in the moon, right, But
Speaker 1: then there's what are called variations of that motif. So
Speaker 1: in Japan and Korea, the rabbits making mochi, which is
Speaker 1: a sweet, squishy rice cake that often has like something
Speaker 1: even sweeter injected in, like red bean sweetness. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: in China, the rabbit is making medicine. In Thailand's husking
Speaker 1: um rice. So you have variations on what the rabbit
Speaker 1: is doing, but the motif is if you look up
Speaker 1: at the moon, there's a rabbit doing something up there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like we said, it's most likely because of a
Speaker 1: shared border or just because simply people moving between those countries.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about where folklore comes from. Friends, if
Speaker 1: you can believe it or not. Right after this, chuckers,
Speaker 1: So we're back. We're talking folklore. We should also say
Speaker 1: folklore is actually um a fairly recent word. It was
Speaker 1: coined in eighteen forty six by a guy named William J. Toms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a um an early and tiquarian. He was
Speaker 1: also very interested in studying um. What has now come
Speaker 1: to be called folklore or folk life. We should point
Speaker 1: out that's a modern term that people folklore is like
Speaker 1: even more Yeah, because folklore has this connotation that um,
Speaker 1: that it has to do with stories, world traditions or
Speaker 1: even not true things because you've heard like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: just folklore, like an old lives tale. Yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: they've expanded it to include or to reflect how inclusive
Speaker 1: it is by calling it folk life. But um William
Speaker 1: Tom's came up with folklore and it was originally hyphenated
Speaker 1: um and he was describing these stories that he would
Speaker 1: go out into the countryside and collect from folk. Like
Speaker 1: he published a book of like English rural stories that
Speaker 1: included things like Robin Hood and Friar Talk and some
Speaker 1: of the other stories that we have become disnified over
Speaker 1: the years. This guy originally put down for the first
Speaker 1: time on pen and paper and became one of the
Speaker 1: early folklorest. Yeah, and didn't they call just anyone living
Speaker 1: in rural areas. Weren't they just called folk? Which is
Speaker 1: why we sort of associated as like being a bumpkin today.
Speaker 1: But I use that word all the time in fact
Speaker 1: on the Facebook while here, that's my most common way
Speaker 1: of addressing the stuff you should know army is hey folks. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, it just sounds like chummy to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very folks. Folk. See there you go, yeah, hey folks.
Speaker 1: Uh So there are a bunch of innumerable innumerable groups
Speaker 1: really that pass along folklore. Um, and they're called folk
Speaker 1: group folk groups, but we can we can group them generally,
Speaker 1: not folk groups like Peter Paul Mary, Yeah, but folk groups. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I said it with the eldest, now, didn't
Speaker 1: I maybe I like it. It's called the regional ad diction.
Speaker 1: People get all hung up on that stuff. You gotta
Speaker 1: say this wrong. What's weird though, is like neither one
Speaker 1: of us sound like Southerners. Yeah, not really, And I
Speaker 1: mean like you were born here and you don't sound
Speaker 1: like a Southerner. Yeah, I say, I have certain colloquialism,
Speaker 1: so like, uh, have your picture made? Oh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll say, like you mash a button instead of
Speaker 1: push a button. Yeah, And there's It's I think people
Speaker 1: should embrace things like that regional dialect instead of getting
Speaker 1: all hung up on the Queen's English or the King's English.
Speaker 1: See right there, Yeah, that's a that's regional. I imagine
Speaker 1: either one. The prince is English. Um, it's that what
Speaker 1: you're talking about is antithetical the globalization. Chuck. Oh really sure,
Speaker 1: look at you regionalism, smarty fans. Well, I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's counter to globalization. Globalization is turning the earth into
Speaker 1: one large village with all these shared values and everything.
Speaker 1: Regionalism is saying like, no, we'll just stay his pockets
Speaker 1: of interacting groups that have our own our own values
Speaker 1: and traditions and customs like that. I think it's on
Speaker 1: the brain because I posted something today on words that
Speaker 1: are mispronounced a lot and um, what what's up there? Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean also like banal and uh. Dr Seuss supposed
Speaker 1: supposedly pronounced his name is u so ice. Again, I
Speaker 1: can't remember how he pronounced it, but it's just like
Speaker 1: common words you're probably mispronouncing. And the was on there
Speaker 1: And someone said, you guys always pronounced the wrong because supposedly, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: supposedly there's a rule. Not supposedly, I think there is
Speaker 1: a rule. You mean supposedly, Well, that wasn't on there. Um,
Speaker 1: well that's a different that's just saying the wrong word.
Speaker 1: But I think the you should say the in the
Speaker 1: following noun is starts with a vowel, like the apple,
Speaker 1: not the apple, but you could say you could say
Speaker 1: the test because the apple almost sounds like it's th
Speaker 1: h apostrophe apple. Yeah, And I get it, but that's apple.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of a regional thing. I think in
Speaker 1: the South you might hear more the m than the
Speaker 1: snotty New Englanders. So I've never really paid that much
Speaker 1: attention to that one. I haven't either, you know why,
Speaker 1: because we are laid back, that's right. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about, we're talking about people who
Speaker 1: spread the groups, the folk groups. One of the folk
Speaker 1: groups though not Peter poll Mary one of his children.
Speaker 1: And uh, this is a really big one because when
Speaker 1: you think about going back to your childhood, everything like
Speaker 1: the games like hide and see cop scotch. Uh. This
Speaker 1: article pointed out how you decide who's it like that
Speaker 1: is super specific to your region. Um, but also not
Speaker 1: just that the difference is regionally, but think about how
Speaker 1: intricate some of the rules were some of those games,
Speaker 1: like they were like really well thought out, intricate rules
Speaker 1: that no one ever wrote down. They were just past.
Speaker 1: Yeah you knew it from observation, imitation orally like somebody
Speaker 1: told you, but people no one handed you a flyer
Speaker 1: called like kick the can and you you know, well
Speaker 1: one kid did, but we didn't know one like that kid.
Speaker 1: He learned the hard way not to do that. What
Speaker 1: was your How did you decide who was it? I'm
Speaker 1: sure you probably had a go to well. The author
Speaker 1: of this article mentions, bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that. I have heard that. I love
Speaker 1: that one. That the images it evokes, like how many
Speaker 1: pieces do you wish? And you go one to three, five,
Speaker 1: somebody says how many they want, and then you count
Speaker 1: out between two or three people like seven, and then
Speaker 1: whatever you land on that person, is it right? Usually
Speaker 1: we did dirty dirty dish rag? Though, yes, I've never
Speaker 1: heard of that one. Either your mother and my mother
Speaker 1: were hanging out clothes. My mother socked your mother in
Speaker 1: the nose. Never heard it. What came after that? That's
Speaker 1: misogynistic and violent something it really was. Something else happens
Speaker 1: after that, and then it just suddenly goes to and
Speaker 1: you are at you dirty dirty dish rag? You we did?
Speaker 1: There were three that I remember very strongly. The one
Speaker 1: potato to potato, Uh engine engine number nine, Yeah, going
Speaker 1: down Chicago Line. If the train should doump the check,
Speaker 1: do you want your money back? Oh? Yeah, I forgot that?
Speaker 1: And then maybe so who maybe so wanted their money back.
Speaker 1: Of course you want your money back of the train
Speaker 1: de rails. Now that's the kid who just wanted to
Speaker 1: get along. Uh and then engine and or no no? Uh?
Speaker 1: Any meani is the other one? Sure? Any MENI money
Speaker 1: mo kitch talking about them to the hollers. Let them go?
Speaker 1: Any menie? Was that it? And then we also there
Speaker 1: were variations on you know, usually counting out like I'm
Speaker 1: making my two hands locked together. We would do like that,
Speaker 1: and and then if you when you land it on them,
Speaker 1: you would split them into two two fists and then
Speaker 1: count each. So there were lots of variations. And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean that goes down to the neighborhood you live in,
Speaker 1: you know, like that specific. Yeah. We would also just
Speaker 1: leg wrestle for domination and then that person would choose
Speaker 1: who is it. I've never leg wrestled. It's not fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I didn't even know what it is. Really,
Speaker 1: it's exactly what it sounds like. I mean I think
Speaker 1: I've seen it. You lay on the ground and lock
Speaker 1: legs like there's no no other body parts involved, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just basically on your backup on your
Speaker 1: elbows using your legs to do. Let's see objective basically
Speaker 1: make the other person cry or stop shout to stop.
Speaker 1: But it's not. There's not like a pinning or like
Speaker 1: like an army. Yeah you can, you can pin, and
Speaker 1: it's not. It's one of those things like, um, like
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court's view of pornography, Like there's no obvious pin.
Speaker 1: It's just you just kind of know what when you
Speaker 1: see it, you know what I mean, Like you can
Speaker 1: tell you, oh, yeah, that's a pin, but I mean
Speaker 1: you wouldn't. Again, there's no kid like handing out a
Speaker 1: leg wrestling and you flyer that shows what counts as
Speaker 1: a pin. You just kind of know what it pens. Alright.
Speaker 1: Another folk group or families, very rich traditions within families
Speaker 1: from everything, uh from family recipes to holiday traditions. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think, um, like whether or not you use
Speaker 1: the the plastic tinsel on your tree is technically a
Speaker 1: type of family folk lore. Yeah, Or whether you open
Speaker 1: gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, or whether or
Speaker 1: not you're you you hide your Easter baskets yeah, or
Speaker 1: you burn your Christmas tree on Christmas Day, or your
Speaker 1: family gets in a huge fight every Christmas Day. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's another one rich traditions. Um family stories also make
Speaker 1: up traditions. So like, um, my family story about my
Speaker 1: aunt Squeaky taking shooting at President Ford that that would
Speaker 1: count as family folklore. That's very good. Uh uh So
Speaker 1: within families it's another very um strong place where you
Speaker 1: see variants and motifs. Um. Well yeah, across like all folklore, yeah,
Speaker 1: but especially within families for me, uh or I think
Speaker 1: within all families because like you know, your grandmother's recipe
Speaker 1: for like I make the Thanksgiving dressing what other people
Speaker 1: in the North called stuffing, we called dressing, and it's
Speaker 1: my family recipe. That has to do with what he
Speaker 1: uses the base though, doesn't it Like if it's corn based,
Speaker 1: it would be dressing dressing. Yeah, and if it's like
Speaker 1: bread based or wheat based, it would be stuffing. I
Speaker 1: don't know who knows, but go ahead, sorry for interrupting now,
Speaker 1: that's right, minds both though, like cornbread dressing also has
Speaker 1: uh as as either biscuits or bread in it as well.
Speaker 1: But that was my family recipe. My grandmother made it,
Speaker 1: My mom made it, she taught me, and I put
Speaker 1: my own spin on it as and that's my own motif,
Speaker 1: that's your own variation on the motif. Very variational. So
Speaker 1: you said the motif would be the dressing or stuffing,
Speaker 1: and then what you do with the recipe would be
Speaker 1: the variation of it. Yeah, and I mix it up
Speaker 1: from year to year, even just kind of testing things out. Man,
Speaker 1: you are a folk rebel, sure I am. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so family recipes are very that's a common um. Family folklore,
Speaker 1: family generated folklore. We got a lot of our indoctrination
Speaker 1: to just folklore in general through families, and so it
Speaker 1: was so important in some cultures, including some Native American
Speaker 1: tribes and some West West African tribes, that they would
Speaker 1: have a designated basically a folklore's what a folklore um
Speaker 1: a modern folklore researcher would call a tradition bearer, who
Speaker 1: like their job in this village or group is to
Speaker 1: tell each family their family folklore. Like that, it was
Speaker 1: that person's job to keep in charge of all of
Speaker 1: the folklore of the different families in the community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet that that was a pretty cool gig. I
Speaker 1: imagine they were like the the the great storytellers that
Speaker 1: they could tell a story if they're trying the great
Speaker 1: Racan Tours. That's another word. Yeah, you like that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about that word. No,
Speaker 1: really like I think about it once in a while,
Speaker 1: almost every time I encountered m I don't know how
Speaker 1: I feel about that word. Interesting. Yeah, I like it,
Speaker 1: did you know? Also, Chuck, while we're on this, UM,
Speaker 1: I heard the one of the most amazing stories I've
Speaker 1: ever heard about paint on It must have been on
Speaker 1: MPR or something, but they were tracking, um, the color
Speaker 1: of paint, the specific color of paint used in Southern
Speaker 1: porches for ceilings. There's like a specific blue. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: that would count as folklore, just that color paint. That
Speaker 1: would be um, the next type community folklore. That's right.
Speaker 1: But the reason I bring that up because Racan Tour.
Speaker 1: It just makes me think of like somebody sitting in
Speaker 1: a rocking chair and a porch recounting stories. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Um, So that is a great example You're
Speaker 1: right of a community folklore. Um, A festival that you're telling,
Speaker 1: you know, the strawberry Festival in your town is folklore.
Speaker 1: The jazz fest in New Orleans, any sort of local custom,
Speaker 1: um that takes place within your community can all be
Speaker 1: considered folklore, like that's how we do it around here.
Speaker 1: That's folklore, right, as long as it's not like damaging.
Speaker 1: I wonder though, like all of this stuff is um
Speaker 1: supposedly at the very least innocuous, if not positive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's my point. But I mean, surely there's negative
Speaker 1: folklore that still counts as folklore. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: like like racism, it depends on the group, you know,
Speaker 1: that's just how we do it around here, or right
Speaker 1: or not folklore. I don't think. Well, what about something
Speaker 1: where like like stories or mythology or origin stories that
Speaker 1: support um human sacrifice among groups in the past that
Speaker 1: did that, you know, I mean, that would technically be folklore.
Speaker 1: Whatever stories they used to reinforce that, whatever traditions and
Speaker 1: rituals they had around it, that would that would be folklore.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you would call that positive. I
Speaker 1: know I wouldn't. I wouldn't either. I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: from I'm sure we'll get some folklore so that are
Speaker 1: just giddy right now by the way that we're covering this,
Speaker 1: or they're shouting at their stereo. No, I bet they
Speaker 1: seem like kindly folk that would just be like excited
Speaker 1: that we're even hitting on the topic, you know, shining
Speaker 1: a light their way. They're like, you got everything wrong,
Speaker 1: but in a way that's right because you just generated
Speaker 1: entirely no folklore. Yeah, that's a good point. So, chuckers,
Speaker 1: we talked about children, families, communities. There's all sorts of
Speaker 1: different folk groups. Those are the big ones. Um, And
Speaker 1: just a second, we're going to talk about all the
Speaker 1: different folk genres right after this, So Chuck, we're back.
Speaker 1: I forgot what we're talking about folklore. Yeah, we were
Speaker 1: talking about genres of folklore like disco and new metal
Speaker 1: and Norwegian death metal, right and other kinds of metal music. Well, no,
Speaker 1: they would have like their own folklore for sure, those
Speaker 1: groups that are into that. Yeah, but I mean music
Speaker 1: is you know, that's a category. Actually, Um. That was
Speaker 1: one of the things that stuck out to me. Is
Speaker 1: very specific at least according to this University of Louisiana article,
Speaker 1: Like they were like, folklore can be this. It can
Speaker 1: be family recipes. It can be uh, the boat that
Speaker 1: your family passed down, or you know, it can be
Speaker 1: the Viking funeral that your community gives every year. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to folk music, it's like these five
Speaker 1: types of music. Yeah, you know, sure, sure, yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean that's a little because if you're like pull my
Speaker 1: finger if and I'll fart, that's family folklore and the
Speaker 1: Bryant family. Well, I mean, I can guarantee you folklore's
Speaker 1: would not judge that. Oh, speaking of which, did you
Speaker 1: see that thing about the oldest recorded joke? I sent?
Speaker 1: So jokes are an obvious example of folklore. Um, and
Speaker 1: jokes fascinate me up because ever since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I wondered who made up you know, this joke, like
Speaker 1: common jokes, Like someone was the first person to tell
Speaker 1: this joke and it becomes so widespread it's just amazing
Speaker 1: to me how they get passed around. And apparently in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight this is from Reuters. Is it Rooters
Speaker 1: or Reuters? The world's oldest joke was traced back to
Speaker 1: Samaria in b C. And uh it is this, uh
Speaker 1: something which has never occurred since time immemorial, basically since
Speaker 1: time began, a young woman did not fart in her
Speaker 1: husband's lap. So that's the oldest joke. Supposedly, I'll go
Speaker 1: ahead read the other two. It doesn't count as a joke.
Speaker 1: Oh passingly rye observation, which is a joke. I guess
Speaker 1: it seems like folklore's definition of joke. All right, how
Speaker 1: about the six BC? Uh in about a pharaoh? Here's
Speaker 1: the joke, how do you entertain a board pharaoh? How
Speaker 1: you sail a boatload of young women dressed only in
Speaker 1: fishing nets down to the Nile and urged the pharaoh
Speaker 1: to go catch a fish? But supposedly that was a joke.
Speaker 1: And then the English one. Now they're starting to get funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're getting better. The British joke. They found one that
Speaker 1: dates back to tenth century. Uh, what hang? And this
Speaker 1: is a bit of a riddle. What hangs at a man?
Speaker 1: A bit of a body riddle? Body? Indeed, what hangs
Speaker 1: at a man's thigh? And wants to poke the hole
Speaker 1: that it's often poked before? I don't know a key?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so those are the oldest jokes. Well, at
Speaker 1: least by the tenth century, they were starting to take
Speaker 1: the shape of a modern joke, right, yeah. And I
Speaker 1: sent that on Facebook to our buddy Brian Brian Kylie
Speaker 1: of Conan, the writer for Conan, because he's like, this
Speaker 1: is it, this is what I've been looking for. Well,
Speaker 1: he's just he's one of the best crafters of just
Speaker 1: solid jokes that I know. So I was like, Brian,
Speaker 1: you'll appreciate this, and he said, listen up in tonight's monologue.
Speaker 1: And I think he was kidding. But if that's actually
Speaker 1: that would be supersome. Yeah. Uh, let's see. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about folk genres. Jokes specifically, UM constitute what are
Speaker 1: what's called the oral genre, yes, which is you know, jokes, poems, UM.
Speaker 1: Fairy tales are a huge one, myths, legends, Uh, basically
Speaker 1: anything that used to be told orally that these days
Speaker 1: is probably put down um on paper or hyped, but
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily because I think a game instructions for a
Speaker 1: game passing that along would be would constitute oral folklore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the game itself would constitute um material folklore. I
Speaker 1: think maybe this is where the whole thing gets fuzzy,
Speaker 1: Like the edges between these things are very fuzzy and porous.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of osmosis going on between these genres. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a fluid thing. There's nothing wrong with that. Materials
Speaker 1: which you just mentioned, um, they list as artifacts and
Speaker 1: food ways so um like food recipes, yeah, recipes or
Speaker 1: costumes uh, cultural costumes, Uh, they said, carved duck decoys,
Speaker 1: even uh folded paper airplanes, like I guess that little
Speaker 1: game of paper football, Like all of those are material,
Speaker 1: Like how you specifically fold that paper football? Um, it
Speaker 1: was taught to you by some kid in your elementary
Speaker 1: school and it may be different than another kids in
Speaker 1: another school. Yeah you know. Uh. Then when you mentioned music, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: at some point we did, sure and that that can
Speaker 1: be anything. Um, but one that comes to mind for
Speaker 1: me especially are a lullabies. They just remind me to
Speaker 1: me of like folk tradition. Depending on your family, you're
Speaker 1: gonna sing whatever lullabies you sing to your baby, right,
Speaker 1: little kids singing like ring around the rosy, Yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: which apparently it was about some epidemic in London. I think,
Speaker 1: oh really yeah, ring worm around the rosy. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the rosie has to do with like what like your
Speaker 1: face looked like when you caught this fever flu or
Speaker 1: something like that. Well, and then it end you off
Speaker 1: all down? Is that dying? Wow? Not to look into
Speaker 1: that dance is a is a big one Uh, any
Speaker 1: kind of rhythmic movement is generally taught within a folk group.
Speaker 1: Can you dance? No, boy, you and I know those
Speaker 1: would be personal habits bad dancing. I think, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I knew before I even answered that, because I
Speaker 1: know me and how I danced, and I'm picturing you
Speaker 1: and it's equally as bad. I stand still. I know what,
Speaker 1: I know. I've reached the point in my life from
Speaker 1: like I don't dance, well, no, I don't even try.
Speaker 1: I mean, you get me sauce at a wedding and
Speaker 1: something might happen. What do you do? Something magical might happen,
Speaker 1: like the electric slide or something, or do you just
Speaker 1: get out on the floor and go like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: live forever. I did have one of those, my my
Speaker 1: friend Jerry in Portland or no, my friends Scott Nimily
Speaker 1: in Portland at their wedding. Um, they had a jazz
Speaker 1: band and uh, we were all just having a good
Speaker 1: time and sort of dancing, and I remember very specifically,
Speaker 1: and I was much younger, but um, there was like
Speaker 1: a jazz drum breakdown and it's dude, I don't know
Speaker 1: what came over me. The spirit came over me, and
Speaker 1: the circle cleared and I was in the middle and
Speaker 1: I just did this like we your scat drums dance
Speaker 1: solo to this guy's thing, and it went over great everyone.
Speaker 1: It was one of those like, oh my god, look
Speaker 1: at Chuck go. And I'm not saying it was good,
Speaker 1: but um, did your tuxedo dickie roll up at the end.
Speaker 1: That taught me in the nose. It was pretty great though,
Speaker 1: Like it stands out in my memory as one of
Speaker 1: the best parts of the wedding for some reason. I
Speaker 1: can imagine why. I don't know if everyone else remembers.
Speaker 1: It sounds pretty great, Chuck, that was pretty great. I
Speaker 1: wish it were on video. Emily likes my dancing. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of TV theme song dancing to make
Speaker 1: her laugh. But it's all in the house, you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's our little secret. Well not anymore now, just
Speaker 1: shared with the world. I'll post videos later. What else
Speaker 1: do we have? We have a belief that's a big one.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that's another genre which is kind of confounding
Speaker 1: until you get to a good example. His belief is
Speaker 1: like anything from mythology to religion. Um too weird customs
Speaker 1: two all this other stuff that you would think, well,
Speaker 1: well no, wait a minute, that's that would be oral
Speaker 1: or that would be material, right. No. Belief is when
Speaker 1: folklore effects behavior, like it's good luck to do this
Speaker 1: before a wedding exactly, or I'm not leaving the house
Speaker 1: because it's Friday the thirteenth, or I'm not going to
Speaker 1: you know, Um, I've got to wear black because I'm
Speaker 1: in mourning, or something like that. Where you have a
Speaker 1: a belief, it's a folk belief that is affecting your behavior.
Speaker 1: That's that's belief folklore. Yeah. Another good example they use is, uh,
Speaker 1: the Jewish tradition when you give bread and sugar and
Speaker 1: salt to your new neighbor as a housewarming gift. I
Speaker 1: thought they gave another great example in this article too,
Speaker 1: which was, um, you get into uh, you get rear
Speaker 1: ended by somebody in your car, and rather than getting
Speaker 1: out and screaming at them, you remember the Golden rule,
Speaker 1: which is a folklore, um, and you calm yourself and say,
Speaker 1: it's cool, happens of the best of us. That's believed folklore.
Speaker 1: In action, it says, yeah, in action, and then you
Speaker 1: call your wife and do the complaining. Can you believe
Speaker 1: this this idiot. Oh, it's nice to him, but you
Speaker 1: know you didn't deserve it. What else? The golden rule
Speaker 1: in action body communication is one I've never really thought about.
Speaker 1: But um, gestures and expressions are very much cultural specific. Um.
Speaker 1: If you think about like and here in America we
Speaker 1: might flip the bird at somebody, and England they do
Speaker 1: they do two fingers, Yeah, the two fingers up like
Speaker 1: that or the old I don't even know what that's called,
Speaker 1: with the arm and the inner elbow, you know what.
Speaker 1: I think that is based on that and like the
Speaker 1: like too. Yeah, I think it's like an evil eye,
Speaker 1: kind of like a hex or a curse. I think
Speaker 1: that's because you're born from Okay, now it's just hilarious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: somebody does that talk about diffusing the tension. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're about to fight somebody and they like put
Speaker 1: their thumb on their front to at you, that's you're
Speaker 1: just gonna go over and pat him on the shoulder
Speaker 1: and say thanks for that. I like that. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start using that. Although I had to have my fake
Speaker 1: front tooth, I wouldn't want to mess with that. Well,
Speaker 1: what about this one? The finger on the thumb on
Speaker 1: the nose and your fingers up and twiddling. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: an old one that reminds me. I asked you guys
Speaker 1: if you saw the breakdancing six year old right yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. One of the things this girl does
Speaker 1: at like a break off. She's in a competition with
Speaker 1: this maybe twelve year old boy. He's pretty good. This
Speaker 1: girl levels him and one of the things she does
Speaker 1: is like slide toward him on her knees, doing that
Speaker 1: with like her thumb on her nose, like wagging her
Speaker 1: fingers at him. And you're like, oh, yeah, this girl
Speaker 1: is six years old, but it's awesome. You have to
Speaker 1: check her out. I love that. Like everyone out there is,
Speaker 1: like Josh is mentioning this girl every other podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: and I'm going to continue to until everybody writes in
Speaker 1: and say, yes, I've seen it now. The other, um,
Speaker 1: the other insult is the old this one right here?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that I seemed I saw that a lot
Speaker 1: in the seventies. I guess you can just probably describe.
Speaker 1: It's where you Yeah, I was trying to think of
Speaker 1: fingers under your chin, yeah, and flick it, flick them
Speaker 1: all together outward. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a buzz off buddy.
Speaker 1: You know who does that is a Maggie Simpson. She
Speaker 1: does that. Oh really yeah, she's a classy girl. So Chuck,
Speaker 1: we could probably just keep doing this for the next
Speaker 1: four or five hours because folklore is everything. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we both have our own folklore. Um, but I think
Speaker 1: we kind of covered it. I think so too. Have
Speaker 1: you got anything else right now? No? I mean I
Speaker 1: really don't, like you said, it's so all encompassing and broad.
Speaker 1: I think we just think it's pretty good overview. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what's neat is I mean, like, if you're even
Speaker 1: remotely interested in this, there's a whole world out there,
Speaker 1: all the stuff you take for granted. If you just
Speaker 1: go start looking into folklore research, totally open your eyes,
Speaker 1: and what's neat is you'll see your own stuff reinforced.
Speaker 1: You'll see your reflection of yourself, but you'll also see
Speaker 1: other cultures as well, and how they do bear similarities
Speaker 1: to your own, your own beliefs. And it's a lot
Speaker 1: if it's a lot harder to to feel inclusive and
Speaker 1: exclusive from groups that you realize that you share some
Speaker 1: really fundamental stuff in common with, No matter how distant
Speaker 1: they are. Yeah, and that's the point I saw a
Speaker 1: lot in the research. I think it's it's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: It's a common it's a binding agent for humanity. Pretty neat,
Speaker 1: go humanity. All right, Well, if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about folklore, you can type that word into the
Speaker 1: search bar how stuff works dot com. And since I
Speaker 1: said that, hey, there's a little bit of how stuff
Speaker 1: for stuff you should know folklore s Yeah. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this, uh creepy
Speaker 1: email sort of when you think about it. How's that
Speaker 1: for a title? I can't wait. That's the tradition is
Speaker 1: awkwardly named listener mails by me. Okay, I wouldn't say awkward.
Speaker 1: You do pretty great with them. Okay, I appreciate it. Hey,
Speaker 1: guys and Jerry, I have just listened to your podcast
Speaker 1: on the Singularity a k a. The Rise of the Machines,
Speaker 1: and it occurred to me that the entire podcast explored
Speaker 1: the question of how and when the singularity will happen.
Speaker 1: But since we do not know exactly what would cause
Speaker 1: it or what the results would be, isn't it entirely
Speaker 1: possible that it has already happened. It is quite conceivable
Speaker 1: that singularity happened some time ago, and that the machines decided,
Speaker 1: knowing that humans currently believe the Singularity not to have happened,
Speaker 1: that the best course of action was to keep their
Speaker 1: sentience hidden until some appropriate future time. Uh. It is
Speaker 1: fun to imagine, he says. Fun. I say chilling through
Speaker 1: the bone. To imagine the machine simply lying in wait.
Speaker 1: As humans unaware adopt technology into every conceivable facet of
Speaker 1: modern life, then one day we will wake up and
Speaker 1: our computer screens will simply say hello world. That is
Speaker 1: from j um oh JM. He's like he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be targeted by the machine. They know you type
Speaker 1: that pal. Sure. Uh yeah, that is a little creepy,
Speaker 1: don't you think? I never thought about it. That could
Speaker 1: It could very well be true. And if computers are
Speaker 1: sentient and they're smart enough to be quiet for now,
Speaker 1: then we're in big, big trouble because it already displays
Speaker 1: a lot of deceptiveness. I think quietly sentient was that
Speaker 1: was a Pink Floyd song. I think learning to be
Speaker 1: Quietly center. Yeah. Uh, if you want to give us
Speaker 1: some great Pink Floyd titles, we love those. I think
Speaker 1: you could probably start a meme with that. Uh. You
Speaker 1: can send them to us via Twitter using our Twitter
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