Stuff You Should Know - Selects: What is folklore?

Episode Date: October 30, 2021

What is folklore? Turns out it's just about anything you can think of that's shared by more than two people. Art, literature, stories, dance, music, traditions, even those family heirlooms qualify. Turns out folklore is pretty neat. Learn all about it in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, friends. Chuck here with our Saturday Select Pick. This is all the way back from 2015, February 12, 2015. Remember that being a very good day. Remember being happy that day because we recorded a podcast about folklore and it was great and a lot of fun and it's called What Is Folklore?

And I think you'll enjoy it on the Saturday afternoon. So queue it up and get going right here, right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart radio. Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I'm Joshua Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry is over there. Just Jerry and that's Stuff You Should Know. She has a new sitcom out on the FX called Just Jerry. It's suddenly Jerry. How you doing? I'm fine. What are you asking? Well, don't mean to intrude. Just checking. I know. I'm excited about this. When I first read our article, I was a little bit like, oh, this is a little unwieldy because it's so folklore. It's a amorphous. It turns out it's everything. Yeah, pretty much. But then you sent, what was that

other good article from? Actually, we should shout that out. It was from a, I think the University of Louisiana or something like that. They have a Folklife Folklore Department. Yes. And it was basically, we stumbled upon some unit for teachers to teach what folklore is and we're like, hey, it works for us. Super helpful. Yeah, it was very helpful. It definitely, it took a lot of this amorphous stuff that was in our article and chipped away at the edges and gave it a little more shape. Agreed. So you did kind of hit it on the head. It's kind of like nailing jelly to the wall, defining what folklore is because it is so much stuff. That phrase is folklore. If it isn't just me saying it, if I share it and now other people say it,

it could become stuff you should know folklore, oral folklore. Did you make that up? It was, I think I've heard it before. Okay. So that's folklore. Yeah, I guess so. It's a variation though of, what else did I hear? Oh, yeah, we were talking about the nuclear fusion reactor where they were saying that keeping plasma contained is kind of like trying to hold jelly in a bunch of rubber bands. That's nerd science folklore. That's what inspired me to say nailing jelly to the wall. I like that. Yeah. It seems like it really sums it up. So folklore. Yeah, I found this other definition I thought was pretty good, which is traditional art literature knowledge and practice that is disseminated largely through oral

communication and behavioral example. And then this was the key for me. Things that people traditionally believe, do, know, make, and say. In other words, everything. Yeah. I mean, you're right, everything. That's about as good a definition as you're going to find. One of the problems with studying folklore is that there are so many definitions out there. Apparently, folklorists who are people who study folklore don't like to be too judgy. It's kind of part and parcel with their field of study. You don't judge stuff. You just collect information. Right. The problem is that they've also just kind of collected definitions for folklore along the way. And there isn't one set definition that's accepted by everybody. Yeah. A folklore is

the collected stuff. I was like, that's stupid. It wouldn't be good. Why are you guys doing that? That's a good TV show, the bad folklorist. And I might say folk here and there because I mispronounced that word often and I'm fine. How are you saying it? Well, a lot of times, I'll say the L. In fact, up until about a year ago when someone wrote in, I said, you stupid. It's pronounced folk, like F-O-K-E. Folk. And not folk. But the weird thing is, I hear the L missing when I hear folk. Oh, weird. That's some sort of... Like, I don't hear F-O-K-E. Like, it's clear to me that there's a F-O-L-K in there. You hear the silence? It's a great word. F-O-L-K. It's beautiful. It is beautiful. And another thing too that we should point out that folklorists

love to point out is that it is not and should not be associated with being backward or old-timey or uneducated. Like, I think a lot of people have that connotation in their heads that folklorists, like the hillbilly on the porch, you know, when they're homespun wisdoms. And it can be that, but it's not that at all. Like, it's not just that. Right. A really good example that contradicts that is Snopes. Snopes.com is basically a clearing house of modern folklore. Oh, yeah. Never really thought about that. You know, the Nigerian Prince scam. That's folklore. Yeah, it sure is. Emoticons even are considered now a form of verbal communication, verbal folklore. Yeah. And like you said, it's everything. And the reason it's everything is because

it comes out of groups. Like, if I just have a habit, you know, where I keep a rubber band twisted around my finger until it turns purple and then I'll take it off for half an hour and then do it again. That's just some weird habit. That's not folklore. Folklore is something that's shared between a group. Yeah. And those groups can be like almost anything. I think the great article you sent that says neighborhoods, communities and regions, but also religious groups, families, occupations, gender, like pretty much any grouping, enthusiasts, hobbyists, anything you can think of that you can group more than two people together can be a folk group. All right, exactly. You can have like a Catholic dockyard worker who is also a member of an RC

plane club. Yeah. Who also is a member of a book club at the local library. Right. So that one person is going to be a member of all those different folk groups and all those folk groups are going to have their own folklore. True. That's, yeah, you're right. That's another good thing to point out is you're not just in one group. You have, you span many, many groups. And for instance, I have family folklore. We have probably occupational folklore, you know, the old podcast or folklore for us and our colleagues and my gender and my age and religious affiliation growing up. Like we all have many, many groups and subgroups that we fall into. Right. And we get our information from that. Yeah. One of the things that I think has been tricky about defining

folklore is that there's not, it's not obvious necessarily what folklore is for. Yeah. Not at first blush, but if you go and read some of the people who study it, the idea of folklore is that one of the main things it does is it reinforces membership in a group. Yeah. It makes you feel special for being part of that group. Yeah. Being an insider. An insider. Yeah. And then it also reinforces the norms of that group. Like folklore is based on basically norms, customs, traditions, things that the members of the group have said, this is what, you know, we identify with. Yeah. And not always too, as that teaching site points out, not always reinforcing those norms, sometimes overturning those norms. Yeah. Like a good way to overturn the norm is to take an existing norm

and turn it on its ear. Right. Because it makes it really approachable to the other people in your folk group. Yeah. They understand what you're doing very clearly and it gives them a different perspective. Right. Using the traditional channels. Yeah. Like, I think one example I saw somewhere was taking a traditional folk song, maybe, and adding verses to it to spin its meaning to the opposite, perhaps. Right. Like Bob Dylan. He's famous for stealing things. Sure. Or Jimmy Page. Oh, yeah. Have you heard that song? The Zeppelin or the Yesterday Way to Heaven? Lawsuit. No, no. Whose song was it originally? I can't remember the name. I mean, this is not news. It's been around for a while. But, yeah, I mean, they've been sued. It was a group that opened up

for Zeppelin on an early tour and supposedly played this song. And I think Zeppelin has, I haven't looked it up lately, but I think they have defeated the suit. But when you hear the song, you're like, oh, that sounds a little bit like the opening bit, the Stairway to Heaven. So it was like the musical, the music, it wasn't like any of the lyrics. Yeah. That opening guitar strumming pattern was pretty darn similar. But as any musician will tell you, everybody steals. There's only so many variations of chords and picking patterns that you can do. And it's just part of the rich tradition of music is to nick things respectfully, not, you know. Not those busters. I want a new drug kind of feeling. Yeah. I mean, that's when your lawsuits

come up. It's not just music that there's that long tradition of stealing or nicking or whatever you want to, euphemism. It's literature is very much the same way. There's something like five or 10 themes in all of literature and everything else is just basically a variation of them. And that's one of the things that folklorists have learned through studying folklore is that we humans share what can be called basically a common imagination, that humans across time and space all have a certain number of slots of looking at the world. Certain things in the world capture the human imagination in a similar way in all different parts of the world. And we tend to use similar explanations for them. So you'll have independently evolving folklore

among groups who've never met before that seek to explain or have a story about something that is just kind of out there in the environment. Yeah. That's a good point. One of the examples of that is in folklore stories, our frogs and toads can be found in all kinds of old stories and all cultures all over the world that, I mean, it's possible too if you're close to one another like Korea and China may have stories to overlap one another just through a common geographical boundary. But stuff like frogs and toads will pop up, let's say in Europe or medieval Europe or in Asia. Places aren't even close to one another where it's inexplicable basically. Right. And they'll share a similar personality or something in the story. So frogs and toads are commonly

thought of as shape-shifting tricksters. Yeah. And I think this article points out that that's probably because they go from tadpole to frog or toad and they change themselves physically. So it's, you know, the old dummies back in the day, they would just use that obvious thing to make up a story. Obviously they can become human too since they go from tadpole to frog. Exactly, like the frog prints. And you mentioned also shared regional characteristics that are most likely the result of stories making it from one group to another crossing borders. Yeah. But among groups that are close together, that example you gave of East Asia, Japan and Korea, Thailand, China, they all have the idea that there's a rabbit in the moon and he's using a

mortar and pestle. And what that would be is a motif. Like all of them have this shared idea that there's a rabbit in the moon, right? Yes. But then there's what are called variations of that motif. So in Japan and Korea, the rabbits making mochi, which is a sweet squishy rice cake that often has like something even sweeter injected in like red bean sweetness, right? In China, the rabbit is making medicine. Yeah. In Thailand, he's husking rice. Yeah. So you have variations on what the rabbit is doing, but the motif is if you look up at the moon, there's a rabbit doing something up there. Yeah. And like we said, it's most likely because of a shared border or just because simply people moving between those countries. So we'll talk about where folklore

comes from, friends, if you can believe it or not, right after this. I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously. I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody you everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikala. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good

there is a risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuckers. So we're back. We're talking folklore. We should also say folklore is actually a fairly recent word. It was coined in 1846 by a guy named William J. Toms. He was an early antiquarian. He was also very interested in studying what has now come to be called folklore. Yeah, or folk life, we should point out. That's a modern term that people, folklorists like even more. Yeah, because folklore has this connotation that it has to do with stories, oral traditions. Yeah, or even not true things, because you've

heard like, oh, that's just folklore, like an old wives tale. Yeah, exactly. So they've expanded it to include or to reflect how inclusive it is by calling it folk life. But William Toms came up with folklore and it was originally hyphenated. And he was describing these stories that he would go out into the countryside and collect from folk. Like he published a book of like English rural stories that included things like Robin Hood and Friar Talk and some of the other stories that we have become disnified over the years. This guy originally put down for the first time on pen and paper and became one of the early folklorists. Yeah, and didn't they call just anyone living in rural areas, weren't they just called folk? Right. Which is why we sort of associate it as like being

a bumpkin today. Yeah. But I use that word all the time. In fact, on the Facebook wall here, that's my most common way of addressing the stuff you should know army is, hey folks. Oh, I know. It just sounds like a chummy to me. Yeah, very folksy. Folksy, there you go. Yeah. Hey folks. So there are a bunch of innumerable groups really that pass along folklore. And they're called folk groups. Folk groups, but we can group them generally. Not folk groups. Like Peter Paul and Mary. Yeah, sure. But folk groups. Yeah. I think I said it with the L just now, didn't I? Maybe. I like it. It's called regional diction. Okay. People get all hung up on that stuff. You got to say this wrong. What's weird though is like neither one of us sound like

Southerners. Yeah, not really. And I mean, like you were born here and you don't sound like a Southerner. Yeah, I say I have certain colloquialisms though, like I have your picture made. Oh yeah, that is definitely Southerner. Sometimes I'll say like you mash a button instead of push a button. Yeah. And there's, I think people should embrace things like that, regional dialect. Right. Instead of getting all hung up on the Queen's English or the King's English, see? Right there. Yeah, that's regional, I imagine. Either one. The Prince's English. It's that what you're talking about is antithetical to globalization, Chuck. Oh, really? Sure. Look at you. Regionalism. Smarty pants. Well, I mean, let's counter to globalization. Globalization is turning the

earth into one large village with all these shared values and everything. Regionalism is saying like, no, we'll just stay as pockets of interacting groups that have our own values and traditions and customs. I like that. Sure. I think it's on the brain because I posted something today on words that are mispronounced. Oh, yeah. A lot. And what's up there? Oh, I mean, also like banal and Dr. Sue supposedly pronounces his name as Soice. I can't remember how he pronounced it, but it's just like common words you're probably mispronouncing. And thee was on there. And someone said, you guys always pronounce thee wrong because supposedly... The? Like thee or the? Yeah, exactly. Supposedly there's a rule. Not supposedly. I think there is a rule. You mean supposedly? Well,

that wasn't on there. Well, that's different. That's just saying the wrong word. But I think thee, you should say thee when the following noun starts with a vowel like the apple, not the apple. But you could say... Oh, yeah, I could see that. You could say the test. Because the apple almost sounds like it's th apostrophe, apple. Yeah, and I get it. But it's just sort of a regional thing, I think in the South you might hear more the, than the snotty New Englanders. I've never really paid that much attention to that one. I haven't either. You know why? Because we are laid back. That's right. All right, so what we're talking about. We're talking about people who spread the groups, the folk groups. Not folk groups though. No, not Peter, following Mary. One of

his children. And this is a really big one because when you think about going back to your childhood, everything, like the games like hide-and-seek, hopscotch, this article pointed out how you decide who's it, that is super specific to your region. But also, not just that, the differences regionally, but think about how intricate some of the rules were to some of those games. They were really well thought out, intricate rules that no one ever wrote down. They were just passed. You knew it from observation, imitation, orally, like somebody told you, but no one handed you a flyer called like kick the can and you, you know? Well, one kid did, but he didn't. No one like that kid. He learned the hard way not to do that. What was your, how did you decide who was it? I'm sure

you probably had a go to. Well, the author of this article mentions bubblegum bubblegum in a dish. I'd never heard that. I have heard that. Okay. I love that one. The images it evokes, like how many pieces do you wish? And then you go one, two, three, four, five. Somebody says how many they want and then you count out between two or three people, like seven and then whatever you land on, that person's it, right? Yeah. Usually we did dirty, dirty dish rag though. See, I'd never heard of that one either. Your mother and my mother were hanging out clothes. My mother socked your mother in the nose. Never heard it. What came after that? That's misogynistic and violent. Something, it really was. Something else happens after that and then it just suddenly goes to,

and you are it, you dirty, dirty dish rag you. We did, there were three that I remember very strongly, the one potato, two potato, engine, engine number nine. Yeah. Going down Chicago line, if the train should dump the track, do you want your money back? Oh yeah, I forgot that one. Sure. And then, maybe so, who maybe so wanted their money back? Of course you want your money back of the train derails. No, that's the kid who just wanted to get along, I guess. And then engine in, or no, no, no, Enimini is the other one. Sure. Enimini, Monimo, Ketchatagar by the toe. Yeah. If you hollers, let them go. Enimini. Is that it? Monimo. And then we also, there were variations on, you know, usually counting out, like I'm making my two hands locked together,

we would do like that. And then if you, when you landed on them, you would split them into two fists and then count each one. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So there were lots of variations and I mean, that goes down to the neighborhood you live in. Right. You know, that's specific. Yeah. We would also just leg wrestle for domination. Really? And then that person would choose who is it. I've never leg wrestled. It's not fun. Yeah, I didn't even know what it is really. It's exactly what it sounds like. I mean, I think I've seen it. You lay on the ground and lock legs. Yeah. Like, there's no other body parts involved. Right. I mean, you're just basically on your back, up on your elbows, using your legs to do what nobody else is doing. We'll see objective.

Basically make the other person cry or stop, shout to stop. But it's not, there's not like a pinning or like an arm wrestling? Yeah, you can pin. And it's not, it's one of those things like the Supreme Court's view of pornography. Like, there's no obvious pin. It's just, you just kind of know it when you see it. You know what I mean? Like, you can tell, oh yeah, that's a pin. But I mean, you wouldn't, again, there's no kid like handing out a leg wrestling and you flyer that shows what counts as a pin. You just kind of know what a pin is. All right. Another folk group are families, very rich traditions within families, from everything from family recipes to holiday traditions. Yeah. And I think... Like, whether or not you use the plastic tinsel on your tree is technically

a type of family folk lore. Yeah. Or whether you open gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. Yeah. Or whether or not you... You hide your Easter baskets. Yeah. Or you burn your Christmas tree on Christmas day. Or your family gets in a huge fight every Christmas day. Sure, that's another one. Yeah. Rich traditions. Family stories also make up traditions. So like, my family story about my Aunt Squeaky taking, shooting at President Ford, that would count as family folklore. That's very good. So within families, it's another very strong place where you see variants and motifs. Well, yeah, across like all folklore. Yeah. But especially within families for me, or I think within all families, because like, your grandmother's recipe for... Like,

I make the Thanksgiving dressing, what other people in the North call stuffing. Sure. We call dressing. And it's my family recipe. That has to do with what you use as the base though, doesn't it? Like, if it's corn based, it would be... Dressing. Dressing. Yeah. And if it's like bread based or wheat based, it would be stuffing. I don't know. Who knows. But go ahead. Sorry for interrupting. No, that's right. Mine's both though. Like, cornbread dressing also has either biscuits or bread in it as well. Right. But that was my family recipe. My grandmother made it. My mom made it. She taught me. And I put my own spin on it as... And that's my own motif. That's your own variation on the motif. Very variational. So the motif would be the

dressing or stuffing. And then what you do with the recipe would be the variation of it. Yeah. And I mix it up from year to year even just kind of testing things out. Man, you are a folk rebel. I sure am. With the cause though. But yeah. So family recipes are a very... That's a common family folklore, family-generated folklore. We got a lot of our indoctrination to just folklore in general through families. And so it was so important in some cultures, including some Native American tribes and some West African tribes that they would have a designated, basically a folklore. A modern folklore researcher would call a tradition bearer who like their job in this village or group is to tell each family

their family folklore. It was that person's job to keep in charge of all of the folklore of the different families in the community. Yeah. I bet that was a pretty cool gig. Sure. I imagine they were like the great storytellers of their... I bet they could tell a story. Oh, yeah, if they're tribe. The great racquantours. Oh, yeah. That's another word. Yeah. Yeah. You like that one? Yeah. I don't know how I feel about that word. No, really. I think about it once in a while. Almost every time I encounter it, I don't know how I feel about that word. Interesting. Yeah. I like it. Did you know also Chuck, while we're on this, I heard one of the most amazing stories I've ever heard about paint. It must have been on NPR

or something, but they were tracking the specific color of paint used in southern porches for ceilings. There's like a specific blue. Really? Yeah. That would count as folklore, just that color paint. That would be the next type, community folklore. That's right. But the reason I bring that up is because racquantour just makes me think of somebody sitting in a rocking chair in a porch recounting stories. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So that is a great example, you're right, of a community folklore. A festival that you're... The Strawberry Festival in your town is folklore. The Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Any sort of local custom that takes place within your community can all be considered folklore. Right. That's how we do it around here. That's folklore.

Right. As long as it's not damaging. I wonder though that all of this stuff is supposedly, at the very least innocuous, if not positive. Yeah, that's my point. But surely there's negative folklore that still counts as folklore. I don't know. Like racism? Maybe. It depends on the group. That's just how we do it around here. Right. That's not folklore, I don't think. Well, what about something where stories or mythology or origin stories that support human sacrifice among groups in the past that did that? That would technically be folklore, whatever stories they used to reinforce that, whatever traditions and rituals they had around it. That would be folklore. I don't know if you would call that positive. I know I wouldn't.

I wouldn't either. I'd like to hear from... I'm sure we'll get some folklorists that are just giddy right now, by the way, that were covering this. Or they're shouting at their stereo. No, I bet they seem like kindly folk that would just be excited that we're even hitting on the topic, shining a light their way. They're like, you got everything wrong, but in a way, that's right, because you just generated entirely no folklor. Yeah, that's a good point. So, Chuckers, we talked about children, families, communities. There's all sorts of different folk groups. Those are the big ones. In just a second, we're going to talk about all the different folk genres right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up

some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, we're back. Yes. I forgot what we're talking about. Folklore? Yeah, we were talking about genres of folklore, like disco and new metal and Norwegian death metal.

And other kinds of metal music. Well, no, they would have their own folklore for sure, those groups that are into that. Yeah. But music is, that's a category actually. That was one of the things that stuck out to me is very specific, at least according to this University of Louisiana article, like they were like, folklore can be this, it can be family recipes, it can be the boat that your family passed down, or it can be the Viking funeral that your community gives every year. But when it comes to folk music, it's like these five types of music. Sure. Yeah, I mean, that's a little, because if you're like, pull my finger and I'll fart, that's family folklore and the Bryant family. Well, I mean, I can guarantee you,

folklorists would not judge that. Speaking of which, did you see that thing about the oldest recorded joke I sent? Oh, yeah. So jokes are an obvious example of folklore. And jokes fascinate me up because ever since I was a kid, I wondered who made up, you know, this joke, like common jokes, like someone was the first person to tell this joke and becomes so widespread, it's just amazing to me how they get passed around. And apparently in 2008, this is from Reuters. Is it Reuters or Reuters? Reuters. That's what I thought. The world's oldest joke was traced back to Samaria in 1900 BC, and it is this, something which has never occurred since time immemorial, basically since time began. A young woman did not fart in her husband's lap. So that's the oldest joke, supposedly.

I'll go ahead and read the other two. It doesn't count as a joke. That's a passingly rye observation. Which is a joke, I guess. It seems like folklorist definition of joke. All right. How about the 1600 BC in about a pharaoh? Here's the joke. How do you entertain a board pharaoh? How? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down to the Nile and urged the pharaoh to go catch a fish. Supposedly that was a joke. And then the English one. Now they're starting to get funny. Yeah, they're getting better. The British joke, they found one that dates back to 10th century. What hangs, and this is a bit of a riddle, what hangs at a man,

a bit of a body riddle. Body indeed. What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before. Oh, I don't know. A key. Oh. Yeah. So those are the oldest jokes. Well, at least by the 10th century, they were starting to take the shape of a modern joke, right? Yeah. And I sent that on Facebook to our buddy, Brian Kiley of Conan. The writer for Conan, because he's like, this is it. This is what I've been looking for all the time. Well, he's one of the best crafters of just solid jokes that I know. So I was like, Brian, you'll appreciate this. Nice. And he said, listen up in tonight's monologue. And I think he was kidding, but if that's actually... Oh, that'd be awesome. That would be super

awesome. Yeah. Let's see. So we're talking about folk genres, jokes specifically constitute what's called the oral genre, which is jokes, poems, fairy tales are a huge one, myths, legends, basically anything that used to be told orally that these days is probably put down on paper. Or typed. But isn't necessarily because I think a game, instructions for a game passing that along would constitute oral folklore. Yeah. But the game itself would constitute material folklore, I think. Maybe. This is where the whole thing gets fuzzy. The edges between these things are very fuzzy and porous. There's a lot of osmosis going on between these genres. Yeah. It's a fluid thing. There's nothing wrong with that. Materials, which you just mentioned, they list as artifacts and

food ways. Like food recipes? Yeah. Recipes or costumes, cultural costumes. They said carved duck decoys even, folded paper airplanes, like I guess that little game of paper football. All of those are material, like how you specifically fold that paper football. It was taught to you by some kid in your elementary school and it may be different than another kid in another school. Yeah. Then you mentioned music, right? Yeah. At some point we did. Sure. That can be anything, but one that comes to mind for me especially are lullabies. They just remind me to me of folk tradition. Depending on your family, you're going to sing whatever lullabies you sing to your baby. Right. Or little kids singing like

Ring Around the Rosie. Yeah, exactly. Which apparently was about some epidemic in London, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. Ringworm around the Rosie. Yeah. Like the Rosie has to do with what your face looked like when you caught this fever or flu or something like that. Well, then you all fall down. Yeah. Is that dying? Yes. Wow. I'll have to look into that. Dance is a big one. Any kind of rhythmic movement is generally taught within a folk group. Yeah. Can you dance? No. Boy, you and I. No, those would be personal habits, bad dancing, I think. Yeah. I mean, I knew before I even answered that because I know me and how I dance and I'm picturing you and it's equally as bad. I stand still. I know what I'm, I know I've reached the point in my life

from like, I don't dance. Well, no, I don't even try. Right. I mean, you get me sauced at a wedding. Oh, man. And something might happen. What do you do? Something magical might happen. Like the electric slide or something or do you just get out on the floor and go like, I'm gonna live forever. I did have one of those. My friend Jerry in Portland, I don't know, my friend Scott Nimley in Portland at their wedding. They had a jazz band and we were all just having a good time and sort of dancing and I remember very specifically, and I was much younger, but there was like a jazz drum breakdown and dude, I don't know what came over me. The spirit came over me and the circle cleared and I was in the middle and I just did this like weird scat drum dance solo

to this guy's thing. Wow. And it went over great. Everyone, it was one of those like, oh my god, look at Chuck go. And I'm not saying it was good. Did your tuxedo dickie roll up at the end? Yeah, it taught me in the nose. It was pretty great though. Like it stands out in my memory as one of the best parts of the wedding for some reason. I can imagine why. I don't know if everyone else remembers it that way. It sounds pretty great Chuck. It was pretty great. I wish it were on video. Emily likes my dancing. I do a lot of TV theme song dancing to make her laugh. Nice. But it's all in house, you know. Yeah. It's our little secret. Well, not anymore. Now just share it with the world. I'll post videos later. What else do we have? We have

belief. That's a big one. Yeah, that's another genre, which is kind of confounding until you get to a good example. His belief is like anything from mythology to religion to weird customs to all this other stuff that you would think, well, no, wait a minute. That would be oral or that would be material, right? Right. No, belief is when folklore affects behavior. Like it's good luck to do this before a wedding. Exactly. Or I'm not leaving the house because it's Friday the 13th or I'm not going to, you know, I've got to wear black because I'm in morning or something like that where you have a belief. It's a folk belief that is affecting your behavior. That's belief folklore. Yeah, another good example they use is the Jewish tradition when

you give bread and sugar and salt to your new neighbor as a housewarming gift. I thought they gave another great example in this article too, which was you get re-rendered by somebody in your car and rather than getting out and screaming at them, you remember the golden rule, which is a folklore and you calm yourself and say, it's cool, happens to the best of us. That's belief folklore inaction, it says. Yeah. Inaction. And then you call your wife and do the complaining. Can you believe this? This idiot. Oh, it's nice to him, but you know. He didn't deserve it. What else? It was the golden rule. Inaction. Body communication is one I never really thought about, but gestures and expressions are very much cultural specific. If you think about like

in here in America, we might flip the bird at somebody. In England, they do the little... They do two fingers. Yeah, the two fingers up like that. Yeah. Or the old, I don't even know what that's called with the arm and the inner elbow. What's the trip of your arm? You know what I think that is based on that. It seems Italian. Yeah, I think it's like an evil eye kind of, like a hex or a curse. I think that's what those are born from. Okay. Now it's just hilarious. Yeah. Somebody does that. That's old school. Talk about diffusing the tension. Yeah. You know. You're about to fight somebody and they like put their thumb on their front tooth that you're just going to go over and pat them on the shoulder and say, thanks for that. I like that. I'm going to start

using that. Although I had to have my fake front tooth. I wouldn't want to mess with that. Well, what about this one? The thumb on the nose and your fingers up and twiddling? Yeah. That's an old one. That reminds me. I asked you guys if you saw the break dancing six-year-old, right? Yeah. Oh my gosh. One of the things this girl does at a break off, she's in a competition with this maybe 12-year-old boy. Yeah. He's pretty good. This girl levels him. Yeah. One of the things she does is slide toward him on her knees, doing that with her thumb on her nose, wagging her fingers at him. You're like, oh yeah, this girl's six years old, but it's awesome. You have to check her out. I love that everyone out there is like, Josh is mentioning this girl every other podcast.

And I'm going to continue to until everybody writes in and say, yes, I've seen it now. The other insult is the old, this one right here. Oh yeah. I saw that a lot in the 70s. I guess you can just- We should probably describe it's where you- Yeah, I was trying to think of your fingers under your chin. Yeah, and flick them all together outward. Yeah. Yeah, like buzz off, buddy. You know who does that is Maggie Simpson. She does that. Oh, really? Yeah. She's a classic girl. So Chuck, we could probably just keep doing this for the next four or five hours. Sure. Because folklore is everything. Yeah. And we both have our own folklore. But I think we kind of covered it. I think so too. You got anything else right now?

No, I mean, I really don't. Like you said, it's so all-encompassing and broad. I think it's a pretty good overview. Yeah, but what's neat is I mean, if you're even remotely interested in this, there's a whole world out there. All the stuff you take for granted, if you just go start looking into folklore research, totally open your eyes. And what's neat is you'll see your own stuff reinforced. You'll see your reflection of yourself, but you'll also see other cultures as well, and how they do bear similarities to your own, your own beliefs. And it's a lot harder to feel inclusive and exclusive from groups that you realize that you share some really fundamental stuff in common with no matter how distant they are. Yeah, and that's the point I saw a lot in

the research. I think it's pretty neat. It's a common, it's a binding agent for humanity. Yeah, pretty neat. Go humanity. All right. Well, if you want to learn more about folklore, you can type that word into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said that, hey, there's a little bit of how stuff for stuff you should know folklore, the whole search bar thing. Sure. Yeah, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this creepy email, sort of, when you think about it. Okay. How's that for a title? I can't wait. Right. That's a tradition is awkwardly named listener mail by me. Okay. I wouldn't say awkwardly do pretty great with them. Okay, I appreciate it. Hey, guys, and Jerry, I have

just listened to your podcast on the singularity, aka the rise of the machines. And it occurred to me that the entire podcast explored the question of how and when the singularity will happen. But since we do not know exactly what would cause it or what the results would be, isn't it entirely possible that it has already happened? It is quite conceivable that singularity happened some time ago, and that the machines decided, knowing that humans currently believe the singularity not to have happened, that the best course of action was to keep their sentience hidden until some appropriate future time. It is fun to imagine, he says fun, I say, chilling through the bone, to imagine the machine simply lying in wait as humans unaware,

adopt technology into every conceivable facet of modern life. Then one day we will wake up and our computer screens will simply say, hello world. Oh, man. That is from JM. Oh, JM. He's like, he doesn't want to be targeted by the machine. No. They know you type that pal. Sure. Yeah, that is a little creepy, don't you think? Never thought about it. That could very well be true. And if computers are sentient and they're smart enough to be quiet for now, then we are in big trouble because it already displays a lot of deceptiveness. I think quietly sentient was, that was a Pink Floyd song. Was it? I think. Learning to be quietly sentient? Yeah. If you want to give us some great Pink Floyd titles,

we love those. I think you could probably start a meme with that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can send them to us via Twitter using our Twitter handle at SYSK podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.