Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?

Subject: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 06:17 AM

Am I making a stretch too far?

1) Born under a gooseberry bush. is that bush the joke?

2) What the Stork brought. Stalk?

3) Fairground ride - Tunnel of Love. Victorian reference to the obvious?

the latter I have long suspected but the first two only just made it to realisation.

What do 'Catter think? Or am maligning our forebears?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: maeve
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 07:04 AM

Not familiar meanings to me, but I found these:

1. Gooseberry bush

2. Found nothing in that vein.

3. http://stupidquestionarchives.blogspot.com/2008/03/tunnels-of-love.html

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 10:19 AM

Here's the stork:

When young children ask their parent(s) where babies come from, the most popular lie *ahem* I mean response is to say, "Oh the stork bought you."

(presumably: "... brought ..."). Urbandictionary.com is not always reliable, but incredibly comprehensive. I learned word there of which I did not even know the denoted object or phenomenon, e.g. sexual practice ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: maeve
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 10:34 AM

I think Mr. Red is asking whether the stork saying has underlying sexual undertones.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 11:32 AM

No, you're not.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 01:15 PM

There is a variant in which the stork bites mum's leg causing her to get a baby (into her belly, as older children are bound to observe). This I would call sexual symbolism, not undertone. The stork bringing the baby is a faint hint of a symbol, perhaps closer related to theological motifs of souls being crafted in Heaven.

Of course there are no direct English puns involved, such as "stalk", since those tales are known in French, German, and other languages as well.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 02:47 PM

'Stork' is pretty much the same in German and Scandinavian languages, but as it's a very rare visitor to these isles, its intrusion into our folklore is very likely from the continental via America.

Mr Red,
You've been reading too many of Norman Iles' books!

There is plenty of euphemism and symbolism in our folklore but without evidence speculation is pointless.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 04:11 PM

Mr Red may be stretching it but not so far as to make the stork/stalk link completely off the wall. There are I think etymological connections between the words "stalk" and "stork" - the bird walks with long strides as somebody does when he stalks. The noun "stalk" has phallic connotations and may have been once used as slang for "penis" . A bit of a punning joke between adults when asked the question "where did I come from"? It's not impossible.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 04:40 PM

MGM , I think, had a thread somewhere about how he came across some word in a crossword that he'd never heard of before and then he started seeing the word everywhere. I just had a look at another thread , which mentions the word "stork" .
Jack Campin writes about the origins of the tune to The Battle Hymn of the Republic : " It's used as a dance song by the Hungarians of Transylvania, called ""Golya, golya" (Stork, stork), for a processional dance rather like the Gay Gordons."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 04:41 AM

I still maintain that "Tunnel of Love" is an in (sic) joke.
Funfairs! ------ the clue is in the name.

Gooseberry bush I speculate, but the question is there. Speculation is not pointless, it is fodder for humour at least. I don't think Victorians were any the less knowing than us, and given their mores, having an undertone that is not in yer face would suit their culture. Mistresses were de riger among the monied class. Going back earlier - the likes of Erasmus Darwin (Grandfather thereof) had a 2nd family living within the precinct of Lichfield Cathedral, round the corner from him.

I submit "Bunch of Thyme" as an example of hidden meanings. There it is a moral tail.

To understand you had to be there, but human nature hasn't changed. Only the culture has shifted.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 06:13 AM

I had the same thought about "Bunch of Thyme" Mr Red but was told otherwise. C'mon - Gave her a rose and took her thyme away. Sounds pretty bleedin' obvious to me :-) But then again, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was not about drugs either...

Ho Hum.

:D tG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 08:09 AM

But, as even Freud admitted, 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: s&r
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 08:14 AM

A rose that never would decay = syphylitic sore

Stu

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 08:24 AM

According to the meticulous "Yale Book of Quotations," the famous "cigar" quotation was apparently coined around 1970 to paraphrase an earlier reported but undocumented remark by Freud.

So it is possible that a cigar is *never* just a cigar.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 09:38 AM

Something syllogistic in your logic there, I suspect, Jon. May be true even if Sigmund didn't put it quite like that.

~M~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 10:53 AM

I studied syllogism under the late, great Gracie Allen, wife of George Burns. Were they known too in Britain?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 11:31 AM

Oh, yes. Incomparable comedians.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 11:37 AM

Mr Red

You seem to have lost contact with the context here. The whole point of the humour in both these phrases is that they have absolutely no sexual connotation.

:-s

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 12:22 PM

I consider it an axiom that nothing in human behavior ever happens for just one reason; there are always multiple reasons for everything. There is even a name for this principle in psychology: overdetermination. Freud used it, but he may not have originated it. It applies not only in psychology, but also politics, economics, history, folklore, literature, language—have I missed anything?

It's handy to keep this idea in mind. It keeps you from wasting time by getting into futile arguments about "What is the real reason we say 'stork'?" or "What is the real reason we invaded Iraq?"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 03:05 PM

I have always favored the scheme given in a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip. Calvin's mother tells him he was bought at Sears, so he asks his father if that is true. No, says his father, we couldn't afford Sears; you were a blue-light special at K-Mart.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 03:11 PM

Having ridden in the Tunnel of Love at the fair grounds when I was a teenager, I can verify that it is no joke.
Just long enough for a quickie.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Doh - those old saying - am I right?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 03:45 AM

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"
And sometimes it's a sex toy, Lewinski allegedly