Stuff You Should Know - What is folklore?

Episode Date: February 12, 2015

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 today's episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

attention bachelor nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack

and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowstuffWorks.com. Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 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 that FX cult. Just Jerry. It's suddenly Jerry. How you doing? I'm fine. What do you ask? Well, don't mean to intrude. Just checking. Yeah, 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 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, you know? 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, 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 their field of study. You don't judge stuff. You just collect information. Right. The problem is, 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 folklorist that collected stuff was like, that's stupid. It would 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 mispronounce that word often. And I'm trying. 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, is like, I hear the L 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 clearinghouse of modern folklore. Oh, yeah. I 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, this 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, it 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. You're right. That's another good thing to point out is you're not just in one group. You span many, many groups. And for instance, I have family folklore. We have probably occupational folklore, you know, the old podcaster 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 Starway 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 Starway 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 goblets. 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. Yeah. 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 like a 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 to 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 you know let's say in Europe or medieval Europe or in Asia like places aren't even close to one another where it's inexplicable basically. Right and they'll share like a similar

personality or something in the story so like 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 but among groups that are close together and 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 rabbit's 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 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 gonna 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 can crash 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. On the podcast Hey Dude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cold classic show Hey Dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews co-stars friends and non-stop references to the

best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friends beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuckers. Yo. 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. Yeah. 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 folklorist like even more. Yeah because folklore has this connotation that um that it has to do with stories. Yeah or 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 fire 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 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 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 guys 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. I sometimes I'll say like you mash a button instead of push a button. Yeah. And there's it'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 a 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 fans. Well I mean that'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 share 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 what's up there. Oh I mean also like banal and Dr. Sue support supposedly pronounced his name is so so I can't remember how he pronounced it but it's just like common words you're probably mispronouncing and the was on there and someone said you guys always pronounce the wrong because supposedly the year 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 the you should say the when the following noun is starts with a vowel like the apple not the apple but you could say 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 the apple it's just sort of a regional thing I think in the south you might hear more the than the 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 one of us folk groups though 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 like that is super specific yeah to your region but also not

just that the differences regionally but think about how intricate some of the rules were oh yeah some of those games like they were like really well thought out sure intricate rules that no one ever wrote down oh no no they were just passed yeah you knew it from observation imitation orally yeah 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 we we didn't know and like that kid he learned the hard way not to do that what was your uh 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 that the images it evokes like how many pieces do you wish and you go one two three

four five somebody says yeah how many they want and then you count out yeah between two or three people like seven and then whatever you land on that person's it right yeah uh usually we did dirty dirty dish rag though gosh yeah 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 uh 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 um 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 you just wanted to get along I guess uh and then engine and or no no uh eny meany is the other one sure eny meany miney moe kitchen tiger brother tell yeah hollers let him go eny meany is that it miney moe and then we also there were variations on you know usually counting out like I'm making my two hands uh locked together we would do like that and and then if you when you landed on them you would split them into two two fists and then count each one yeah so there were lots of variations and uh I mean that goes down to the neighborhood you live in right you know like that 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 no other body parts involved right I mean just basically on your back up on your elbows using your legs to do what the objective basically make the other person cry or stop shout to stop but it's not there's not like a pinning or like like an arm wrestling yeah you can you can pin and it's not it's one of those things like um 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 right 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 right that shows what counts as a pin you just kind of know what it is all right another folk group are families very rich traditions within families from everything from family recipes to holiday traditions uh and I think um like whether or not you use the 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're you uh 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 um family stories also make up traditions so like um my family story about

my aunt squeaky taking uh shooting at president ford that um that would count as family folklore that's very good uh so within families it's another very um strong place where you see variants and motifs um well yeah across like all folklore yeah but especially within families for me uh or I think within all families because like you know your grandmother's recipe for uh 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 uses 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 uh has has either biscuits or um 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 variation on so the motif would be the dressing or stuffing and then what you do with the recipe would be the variation 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 a cause though but yeah so family recipes are very that's a common um 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 what a folklore um a modern folklore researcher would call a tradition bear yeah who like their job in this village or group is to tell each family their family folklore like it that 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 that was a pretty cool gig sure I imagine they were like the the uh the great storytellers I bet they could tell the story oh yeah if they're tried yeah the great racquantours um yeah that's another word yeah yeah you like that one yeah I don't know how I feel about that word no really like I think about it once in a while almost every

time I encounter it I'm 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 um I heard the one of the most amazing stories I've ever heard about paint on it must have been on NPR or something but they were tracking um the color of paint the specific color of paint yeah used in southern porches for ceilings there's like a specific blue really yeah and um that would count as folklore just that color paint that would be yeah the next type community folklore that's right but the reason I bring that up is because racquantour just makes me think of like somebody sitting in a rocking chair in a porch recounting stories yeah yeah for sure um so that is a great example you're right of a community folklore um

uh a festival that you're you know the strawberry festival in your town is folklore uh the jazz fest in New Orleans any sort of local custom um that takes place within your community can all be considered folklore right like that's how we do it around here that's folklore right as long as it's not like damaging I wonder though like that all of this stuff is um supposedly at the very least innocuous if not positive yeah that's that's my point but I mean surely there's negative folklore that still counts as folklore I don't know you know like um racism yeah it depends on the group you know that's just how we do it around here or right or um folklore I don't think well what about something where like like stories or mythology or origin stories that support um human sacrifice

among groups in the past that did that you know I mean that would technically be folklore whatever stories they used to reinforce that whatever traditions and rituals they had around it that would 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 right that we're covering this or they're shouting at their stereo no I bet they seem like kindly folk that would just be like excited that we're even hitting on the topic you know yeah 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 folklore 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 um and just a second we're going to talk about all the different folk genres right after this 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 gonna 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 can crash 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 I heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts on the podcast pay dude the 90s called david lasher and christine taylor stars of the cult classic show hey dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces we're gonna use hey dude as our jumping off point but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s we lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it it's a podcast packed with interviews

co-stars friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever do you remember going to blockbuster do you remember nintendo 64 do you remember getting frosted tips was that a cereal no it was hair do you remember aol instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist so leave a code on your best friends vapor because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your gameboy blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s listen to hey dude the 90s called on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts so chuck we're back yes i forgot what we're talking about folklore yeah we're talking about genres of folklore like disco and new metal and Norwegian

death metal right and other kinds of metal music well no they would have like their own folklore for sure those groups sure that are into that yeah but i mean music is you know that's a category actually um 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 uh the boat that your family passed down or you know 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 yeah you know sure surely 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 oh speaking of which did you see that thing about the oldest recorded joke i said oh yeah so jokes are an obvious example of folklore um 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 become so widespread it's just amazing to me how they get passed around sure and uh apparently in 2008 this is from Reuters is it Reuters or Reuters Reuters that's what i thought uh the world's oldest joke was traced back to samaria in 1900 bc and uh it is this uh something which has never occurred since time immemorial basically since time again uh a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap

but so that's the oldest joke supposedly uh i'll go ahead and read it it doesn't count as a joke that's a oh passingly rye observation which is a joke i guess it seems like folklorist definition of joke all right how about the 1600 bc uh in uh 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 but 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 uh what hang and this is a bit of a riddle uh what hangs at a man a bit of a body riddle body indeed uh what hangs at a man's thigh

and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before i don't know a key oh yeah so those are the oldest jokes does it get well at least by the 10th century they were starting to take the shape of a modern joke right yeah and i sent that uh on facebook to our buddy uh brian uh brian kiley of uh conan oh yeah the writer for conan because he's like i this is it this is what i've been looking for well he's just he's one of the best crafters of just solid jokes uh 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 yeah uh let's see so we're talking about folk genres jokes specifically um constitute what are what's

called the oral genre yes which is you know jokes poems um fairy tales are a huge one yeah myths legends basically anything that used to be told orally that these days is probably put down um on paper or typed but isn't necessarily because i think a game instructions for a game passing that along would be would constitute oral folklore yeah but the game itself would constitute um material folklore i think maybe this is where the whole thing gets fuzzy like 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 um they list as artifacts and food ways so um like food recipes yeah recipes or costumes uh cultural costumes uh they said

carved duck decoys even uh folded paper airplanes like i guess that little game of paper football like all of those are material like how you specifically fold that paper football um it was taught to you by some kid in your elementary school and it may be different than another kid in another school yeah you know yeah uh then you mentioned music right yeah oh yeah uh at some point we did sure and that that can be anything um but one that comes to mind for me especially our lullabies they just remind me to me of like folk tradition depending on your family you're gonna sing uh whatever lullabies you sing to your baby right or little kids singing like ring around the rosy yeah exactly it apparently was about some epidemic in london i think oh really yeah ringworm

around the rosy yeah like the rosy has to do with like what like your face looked like when you caught this fever or flu or something like that well then and you all fall down yeah is that dying yes wow i have to look into that uh dance is a is a big one uh any kind of rhythmic movement uh is generally taught uh 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 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 earno my friend scott and emily in portland at their wedding um they had a jazz band and uh we were all just having a good time and sort of dancing and i remember very specifically i was much younger but um there was like a jazz drum breakdown and dude i don't know what came over me the spirit came over me and the the circle cleared and i was in the middle and i just did this like weird scat drums 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 right but um did your

tuxedo dicky roll up at the end yeah it popped me in the nose it was pretty great though like it stands out in my memory is one of the best parts of the wedding for some reason i can imagine why i don't know if everyone else remembers 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 uh make her laugh nice but it's all in house you know yeah it's it's our little secret well not anymore now just share with the world right i'll post videos later uh what else we have we have uh belief that's a big one uh yeah that's another genre which is kind of confounding until you get to a good example is belief is like anything from mythology to religion um to weird customs to all this other

stuff that you would think well well no wait a minute that's 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 right or i'm not going to you know um i've got to wear black because i'm in mourning or something like that where you have a a belief it's a folk belief that is affecting your behavior that's that's belief folklore yeah another good example they use is uh 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 um you get into uh you get rear-ended by somebody in

your car and rather than getting out and screaming at them yeah you remember the golden rule sure which is a folklore um 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 right can you believe this this idiot yeah i was nice to him but you know you didn't deserve it what else uh golden rule inaction body communication is one i never really thought about but um gestures and expressions uh are very much cultural specific um if you think about like and here in america we might flip the bird at somebody and england they do the little two fingers yeah the two fingers up like that yeah or the old uh i don't even know what that's called

with the the arm and the inner elbow your arm you know what i think that is based on that and like the like your stomach on your tooth yeah i think it's like a 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 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's you're just gonna go over and pat them on the shoulder say thanks for that i like that i'm gonna start using that although i had to have my fake front tooth i wouldn't want to mess with that well i what about this one the finger on the 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 uh break dancing six-year-old right yeah oh my gosh one of the things this girl does it at like 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 and one of the things she does is like slide toward him on her knees doing that with like her thumb on her nose like wagging her fingers at him yeah and you're like oh yeah this girl's six years old but it's awesome you have to check her out i love it like everyone out there it's 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 uh the other um the other insult is the old uh this one right here oh yeah i seem to saw that a lot in the 70s i guess you can

probably describe it's where you yeah i was trying to think of your fingers under your chin yeah and flick it flick them all together outward yeah yeah yeah like uh buds off buddy you know who does that is a 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 um 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 we just uh i think it's pretty good overview yeah but what's neat is i mean like 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 yeah 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 it's a lot harder to 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 it's pretty neat it's a common it's a binding agent right 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 howstuff or stuff you should know folklore the whole search bar thing sure yeah uh it's time for listener mail i'm gonna call this uh creepy email sort of when you think about it okay how's that for a title i can't wait that's a tradition is awkwardly named listener mail so by me okay i wouldn't say awkward you do pretty great with them okay i appreciate it uh 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 right 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 man that is from jm of jm he's like he doesn't want to be targeted by the machine no and they know you type that pal sure uh yeah that is a little creepy don't you think never thought about it that could it could very well be true and if computers are sentient

and they're smart enough to be quiet for now yeah and we're in big big trouble because it already displays a lot of deceptiveness i think quietly sentient was uh that was a pink void song was it i think learning to be quietly sentient yeah uh 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 uh you can send them to us via twitter using our twitter handle at sysk podcast you can join us on facebook dot com slash stuff you should know you can uh send us an email to stuff podcast at house of works dot com and as always join us at our home on the web stuff you should know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics visit house stuff works dot com

attention bachelor nation he's back the host of some of america's most dramatic tv moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with chris harrison during two decades in reality tv chris saw it all and now he's telling all it's going to be difficult at times it'll be funny we'll push the envelope we have a lot to talk about listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with chris harrison on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts hey i'm lance bass host of the new i heart 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 the lance bass on the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts