Folk Sayings Research Articles

Medieval Spanish and Judeo-Spanish

Students of medieval Spanish literature can recognize oral tradition (= OT) as substrate, catalyst, reactant, and reagent in the verbal arts created in peninsular Romance vernaculars. Direct and indirect testimony confirm its decisive action on lyric and narrative tokens in those languages, as well as on paremiological forms such as refranes (“folk sayings”) and advinianzas (“riddles”). OT is a practical instrument, like the clay tablet, codex, or printed page, but exceptional among them: it warrants the singer to create variations within parameters of genre, performance, and audience. Field recordings made throughout the modern Hispanic-speaking world document reflexes of early romances, folktales, riddles, proverbs, villancicos, and folk remedies, as well as later corrido and decima forms. The multiple iterations, and the social networks that support them, reveal not immutable texts but bundles of narrative and poetic features diffused nonuniformly in space and time. In this sense the present can be used to explain the past. OT offers useful interpretive tools. Its anthropological, literary, and folkloristic dimensions account for artistic and cultural features—patterns of sound and rhythm, narrative self-dramatization, the performance arena enveloping performer and audience in which values of group identity are inculcated—unassayed by literalist methods. Medieval vernacular lyric, narrative, and prose share orality in their genesis, transmission, poetics, and aesthetics. To deny the role of OT in the continuum of epic and chronicle, in the corpus of romances, or in the tales common to enxempla, sermons, and clerical poetry is to obscure their primary verbal dimension and confound their cultural purpose. Adjacent literary traditions affirm the existence of OT in medieval Hispano-Romance before its emergence into vernacular

On pattern-directed search of archives and collections

This article begins by presenting and discussing the distinction between record-oriented and pattern-oriented search. Examples of record-oriented (or item-oriented) questions include: “What (or how many, etc.) glass items made prior to 100 A.D. do we have in our collection?” and “How many paintings featuring dogs do we have that were painted during the 19th century, and who painted them?” Standard database systems are well suited to answering such questions, based on the data in, for example, a collections management system. Examples of pattern-oriented questions include: “How does the (apparent) production of glass objects vary over time between 400 B.C. and 100 A.D.?” and “What other animals are present in paintings with dogs (painted during the 19th century and in our collection)?” Standard database systems are not well suited to answering these sorts of questions (and pattern-oriented questions in general), even though the basic data is properly stored in them. To answer pattern-oriented questions it is the accepted solution to transform the underlying (relational) data to what is called the data cube or cross tabulation form (there are other forms as well). We discuss how this can be done for non-numeric data, such as are found widely in museum collections and archives. Further we discuss and demonstrate two distinct, but related, approaches to exploring for patterns in such cross tabulated museum data. The two approaches have been implemented as the prototype systems Homer and MOTC. We conclude by discussing initial experimental evidence indicating that these approaches are indeed effective in helping people find answers to their pattern-oriented questions of museum and archive collections. Two Kinds of Questions One’s purpose, when approaching an archive or museum collection for information, might be characterized as seeking an answer to one or more questions. Thus, if an information system is to be helpful in answering one’s questions of archives and collections, it would seem that categorizing the questions to be asked can only be helpful in designing an information system to assist in answering them. What kinds of questions are there that are pertinent to archives and museum collections? This is a large and difficult issue, and we do not expect to resolve it here. Our aim in this article is more modest: we wish to distinguish two kinds of questions, and to explore their relevance to museum and archive informatics. We devote the remainder of the present section to making and exploring our basic distinction. The sections that follow explore the distinction in the context of a particular information system, the Core of Discovery system, installed at The Historic New Orleans Collection. The distinction we wish to make here, and to exploit in designing museum and archive information systems, is deeply embedded in folklore and ordinary language. “You cannot see the wood for the trees” is perhaps the earliest recorded embodiment of the distinction in English. [The quotation is from John Heywood’s Proverbs, itself the earliest published (1546) collection of English folk sayings.] Proverbially, there is a distinction to be made between seeing (or asking about) the trees and seeing (or asking about) the forest. But how can we characterize the distinction and what can we do to provide computerized support for these two kinds of questions? One question at a time. First a characterization of the distinction. The distinction is best seen through a series of examples. Let us compare some tree questions with some forest questions. Here are some questions about trees in a forest.

Interpretative Method for a Tale by Boccaccio: An Enchanted Pear Tree in Argos ( Decameron VII.9)

Interpretative Method for a Tale by Boccaccio: An Enchanted Pear Tree in Argos (Decameron 7.9) Richard Kuhns* (bio) When discussing Boccaccio’s Decameron with first-time readers of that complex book, I warn them that every detail in each story demands attention: day of the week, colors, numbers, allusions however remote, saints, locations, folk sayings, and so on and on through a universe of references, many of which may seem at first to be simply a stylistic filling out of narrational specificities but which have significance for the meanings of each story. And so, attempting to follow my own advice, I examine each story in its details for its underlying or deeper meaning, its truth as truth is stated in parables. Boccaccio says in the Proem to the book, that his stories are “stories or fables or parables or histories” [“cento novelle, o favole o parobole o istorie”]. 1 The plots conceal truths that the reader is to uncover. My excavations have led me to discover hidden meanings that were at first concealed by a veil of sheer bravado and entertainment. The book takes great pains, however, to lead the attentive reader to its inner substance by devoting several sections to issues of interpretation, and in that sense we can say that the Decameron is, among all else that it is, a handbook on interpretative method. It explains itself theoretically even though it may at first seem to subvert that theory by a practice of such high—often bawdy—delight that we may fail to take the necessary next step towards understanding and therefore miss much that is most poetically significant. The passages I have in mind when I refer to the book’s interpretative directives are the following: Proem, Epilogue, Introduction to Day Four, and the entire Day Six. Although a close reading of each story in Day Six would be required to explicate all of the subtle interpretative implications they in part conceal, the opening and closing of the book give explicit, though often ignored, instructions for proper reading. In the [End Page 721] case of the Introduction to Day Four, Boccaccio tells a story himself and interprets it providing a model for the reader of the book. While the methodological directives are in these ways scattered throughout the book, they may be drawn together in a summary that, as I state it, is more explicit than the subtle suggestions Boccaccio has planted in various passages. I Women are confined to the house, are kept in apparent idleness, and when unhappy in love are not granted the opportunity for exercise, physical activity, and adventure available to men, and they most definitely are forbidden to enter university. Their isolation and the denial of intellectual stimulation induce melancholia. The author offers his book as the cure for their melancholia, and the means to extend their learning comes through this book. It is understood that melancholia is the common condition of a philosophic mind, and we are led to expect the stories in the book to have serious intent and philosophic content; they make demands on the reader to think through issues of conduct, ethics, politics, education, and tradition. The ladies, though they will not be able to attend the universities in Athens, Bologna, and Paris, possess the intelligence and have the time to pursue philosophy; they will be ideal, canny, penetrating readers of this book. The two titles of the book subtly convey the structure and function of the stories. “Decameron” refers to the ten days of storytelling. “Prencipe Galeotto,” a cognomen announced in an epigraphic heading to the “Proemio,” challenges the reader, for such a cognomen is not immediately meaningful, though we are expected to recognize a reference to Paolo and Francesca, ill-fated lovers encountered by Dante and described in canto 5 of Inferno: “Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse” [“The book was a galleot and he who wrote it”]. A Galleot is a go-between, a pimp, as was the book that brought Paolo and Francesca together to be lovers: not only the book, but also the writer of the book was the Galeotto. Boccaccio, then, by giving his book this second name, is...

Teocuitlatl,“Divine Excrement”

In 1984 the American folklorist Alan Dundes published a provocative analysis of German folk sayings about excrement. The book's title, Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder, exemplifies the consistently negative role played by anal excretions in the lore he collected, for it derives from a popular German expression: “Life is like a chicken (coop) ladder—short and shitty.”1 That the word beschissen, or “shitty,” is here a metaphor for the hardships and unpleasant trivia that obstruct our rise to success and happiness is made clearer in another version of the same expression: “Life is like a chicken (coop) ladder—A person can't get ahead because of all the shit [in one's way].”2

Macedonia and Albania: The Missing Alliance

Abstract : In his first novel, Typee, Herman Melville portrayed a South Pacific island inhabited by two tribes, one kindly generous, the other wild murderous. Two sailors jump ship, hoping to land on the nice side of the island. They do are well treated. Then they must leave for the other side of the island-something to do with a chief's daughter-and take their chances with the savages they have been warned about. When they arrive, they are treated well by friendly natives, who turn out to be identical in disposition to those of the previous side. There really were no beastly cannibals on the island; that was just what the opposing tribes said about each other. Melville could have been writing about the Balkans today, where visitors are welcomed in each country with warm hospitality the warning to be careful if they must visit other Balkan lands, for people aren't so nice there, especially Albanians. Once in Albania, however, the visitor quickly discovers that Albanians, within their straitened economic circumstances, are the most hospitable people of the region. devil isn't as wicked as people say, goes an Albanian folk saying, and neither is an Albanian. In the Balkans now, a climate of mistrust-over irredentist hopes, minorities, just plain racism precludes regional cooperation could conceivably pave the way to a Third Balkan War. The great hobby of the Balkans is to bad-mouth neighbors.

Deriving the size distribution of personal wealth from “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer”

The folk saying, “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer”, implies that wealth flows from poorer to richer hands, a concentrating diffusion. Its academic statement is the Surplus Theory of Social Stratification. Angle (1986) abstracted this theory as an interacting particle system model of wealth distribution, the Inequality Process. In it, random pairs continually compete for each other's wealth. The richer party has a greater chance of winning. The loser gives up a proportion of wealth. Angle (1986) found the equilibrium distribution of the Inequality Process numerically. This paper derives this distribution algebraically, showing that the Inequality Process implies that personal wealth is distributed as a mixture of negative binomial probability functions (NB pf s). The NB pf is closely related to the two parameter gamma probability density function (pdf), what Angle (1986) fitted to the equilibrium distribution of the process. The solution is given in terms of the parameters of the Inequality Proces...

Using Metaphors in Therapy: Dichos and Latino Clients

The clinical literature has given increased attention to the importance of culturally appropriate interventions with diverse populations. The use of metaphor as a tool in psychotherapy has become increasingly salient. Metaphor can also be used in work with Latino clients through the incorporation of dichos, or sayings, that exist in Mexican American and other Latino cultures. These folk sayings exhibit cultural beliefs and ideals embedded in figurative language that describe the human condition. The Spanish language has crystallized human situations, frailties, and anecdotes in the dichos used in everyday conversations. These dichos offer the clinician culturally viable tools for mitigating resistance, enhancing motivation, or reframing problems. Importantly, dichos provide an ambience that contributes to culturally sensitive treatment.

A Case of Poetic Transplant: A Cuban Song in “Kwiaty polskie”

The purpose of this note is to show on the basis of internal evidence alone that a fragment in the epic poem Kwiaty polskie by a Polish poet Julian Tuwim is a variation on a fragment of Canto Negro by a Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen.1 One of the characteristics of Kwiaty polskie is an abundance of fragments of songs, folk sayings, and other specimens of speech, which Tuwim often quotes verbatim. Most of these fragments were well known in the popular culture of Poland before World War II. There is, however, a fragment that, I believe, has not yet been identified and that certainly was not a part of the Polish popular culture.2 In 1939 Tuwim left Poland and, after a short stay in France, also left Europe. While recounting impressions of the trip from Portugal to Brazil on the boat Angola, he describes one of the islands at which the boat presumably arrived:

The Litigious Daughter-in-Law: Family Relations in Rural Russia in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Russian folk wisdom regarded the daughter-in-law, the snokha (a word that also meant sister-in-law), as a source of family friction. Unable to coexist in the cramped quarters of the peasant hut, or izba, where a mother-in-law ruled over the stove and a father-in-law kept watch on the family purse, the daughter-inlaw supposedly made evident her discontent. A host of proverbs and folk sayings attest to the idea of the snokha as troublemaker: the saying that the daughter-in-law “likes the family hands but resents the family pot” summed up this resentment. According to this view, the daughter-in-law took but did not give.Twentieth-century historians, influenced perhaps by Soviet interpretations as well as by literary impressions, see the peasant daughter-in-law in the prerevolutionary era not as a source of friction but rather as a helpless victim of family hostility: a husband's beatings, a mother-in-law's tyranny, a father-in-law's sexual harassment.

Proverbs, slogans and folk sayings in the therapeutic community: a neglected therapeutic tool.

†Presented at the Seventh World Conference of Therapeutic Communities, Chicago, May 10, 1983.

The School and the Social Environment: Interaction

According to a wise folk saying: "Get to the root of the matter, and you will do very well." This proverb, like many others, reinforces an idea that has long been known from everyday human practice: for something to be pursued with more success, one must get to know it from all sides, digging down to the roots and reaching its deep sources and trends of development.

Basic Problems of the Economics of Public Education

According to a wise folk saying: "If you think one year ahead, sow grain. If you think ten years ahead, plant a tree. If you think a hundred years ahead, educate the people." During the years of Soviet power our country has developed a system of public education that includes preschool education, general secondary education, nonschool education, and vocational-technical, secondary specialized, and higher education. In the 1972/73 school year there were 181,000 general education schools of all types; 5,600 Young Pioneer palaces and centers, stations for young technicians, and other government nonschool children's institutions; 5,146 vocational and technical training colleges and schools; 4,270 specialized secondary schools; and 825 higher educational institutions engaged in the upbringing and education of Soviet people.

Basic Problems of the Economics of Public Education

According to a wise folk saying: "If you think one year ahead, sow grain. If you think ten years ahead, plant a tree. If you think a hundred years ahead, educate the people." During the years of Soviet power our country has developed a system of public education that includes preschool education, general secondary education, nonschool education, and vocational-technical, secondary specialized, and higher education. In the 1972/73 school year there were 181,000 general education schools of all types; 5,600 Young Pioneer palaces and centers, stations for young technicians, and other government nonschool children's institutions; 5,146 vocational and technical training colleges and schools; 4,270 specialized secondary schools; and 825 higher educational institutions engaged in the upbringing and education of Soviet people.

Eyeless in Gaza: Some Reflections on Teaching Early English Literature in Israel

WE ALL THINK IN ANALOGIES, and teachers of literature do so extravagantly. My inclination to draw parallels between my students at Brooklyn College (about a quarter of whom are nonwhite) and the students I taught for a single year at the University of Haifa in Israel (about a third of whom were non-European or American) amounts to a reflex, rather than to a thought. But this reflex is the product of extensive conditioning. The parallel between the American Negrothe black-and the American Jew has become as proverbial as motherhood and apple pie; even if it reflects only the brittle surface of an ugly problem, the formula has the comforting sound of a myth or a folk saying. Drawing on the current demographic realities of Israel (its growing proportion of non-white residents) I would like to stretch the formula a bit and suggest an impressionistic parallel between the cultural dilemmas facing the self-conscious American black and those facing the Israeli. In this way I can justify the parallels I observed between the two groups. Israel is torn between its Semitic, AfroAsian affinities, and Hellenic-Christian culture. The American black is trying to locate his identity somewhere between the eighteenth-century heritage of the founding fathers (with their commitment to reason, the perfectability of man and democracy) and the ritualistic, magical cultures of Africa and Islam. Franz Fanon describes the problems which beset the African black trying to define his own national culture, and his

Tongue Tanglers from Central Pennsylvania

C OFFIN'S carefully compiled and already indispensable Analytical Index to the JAF, complete to 1958, shows Pennsylvania to be one of our most poorly represented states with respect to the collection and study of its folklore. Indeed, in the area of folk sayings, as distinct from folktales and folksongs, there has been but one short article pertaining to Pennsylvania (a brief Notes and Queries item) published in the JOURNAL during the last twenty years. Dialect dictionaries, as well as bibliographical and other sources, similarly emphasize the insufficiency of studies of the oral traditional heritage of the Keystone State. In view of the folk and near folklike characteristics of large segments of Pennsylvania's population, with its numerous ethnic communities, both rural and urban, it is impossible to believe the state to be as lacking in oral art and traditional speechways as the published literature of folkloristic scholarship seems so strongly to suggest. During the spring and summer of 1958, students in two undergraduate anthropology courses at The Pennsylvania State University evidenced a somewhat morethan-usual interest in the subject of Charles Francis Potter's sprightly article on Tongue Twisters in the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend.' Several students felt that they knew better examples of tongue teasers than those quoted or cited in this article. This, of course, led to their being invited to submit examples of those they had heard in their own communities. I herewith record those offered by students representing central Pennsylvania, an area here regarded as consisting of Centre County and counties surrounding it to the east, south, and west. The Pennsylvania State University is located in approximately the center of this central area of the state.

The Proverb: Rabelais and Cervantes

N THE course of his detailed study of the language of Rabelais, L. Sainean makes certain observations concerning the use of popular forms which have been for me a stimulating and fruitful source of reflection. Commenting on the wealth of folk sayings scattered throughout Rabelais' work, Sainean states his opinion that Rabelais was the greatest artist of all time in the use of proverbs. Cervantes, the only possible competitor, is dismissed because proverbes allegues par Sancho Pan;a coulent comme une eau calme qui se confond avec celle de la sagesse populaire elle-meme, alors que les dictons de Rabelais sont puises a des sources heterogenes et presentent des aspects les plus varies.l The critic goes on to speak of the eleventh chapter of Gargantua and the twenty-second of the Cinquieme livre, ingenious accumulations of popular and learned wisdom, as unique curiosa in the realm of paroemiology.2 He remarks further that Rabelais was almost the last sixteenth-century writer of importance to use proverbs; the French Renaissance brought a reaction against the popular element in general, and by the seventeenth century proverbs had disappeared from French literature.3

A Method of Collecting and Classifying Folk Sayings

A Method of Collecting and Classifying Folk Sayings

Folk Sayings in a Pioneer Family of Western Oregon

Folk Sayings in a Pioneer Family of Western Oregon

British Statutes in American Jurisdictions

It has been said that man differs from other animals chiefly in this: that he retains in each generation that which has been handed down by its predecessor, and, after applying touchstone of experience, passes it to his successors. This commonplace has been phrased in folk saying, Experience is best teacher, and in legal aphorism that the life of law has been experience. An outstanding characteristic of founding of this republic was tenacity with which our forefathers clung to their inheritance of laws which their immigrant ancestors brought into New World and adapted to requirements of changed environment. John Adams is credited with statement that he would not have taken stand that he did in War for Independence, if such action had involved loss of common law. Chief Justice Taft says, We embodied in Bill of Rights in our Constitution principles of British Constitution as they had been established at Common Law.' At threshold of Revolution American Continental Congress of I774, under presidency of George Washington, adopted this resolution:

A few Warwickshire Folk sayings

A few Warwickshire Folk sayings