LL-L 'Customs' 2006.10.31 (01) [E]

Tue Oct 31 16:11:01 UTC 2006

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L O W L A N D S - L * 31 October 2006 * Volume 01
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From: 'Mark Dreyer' [mrdreyer at lantic.net]
Subject: LL-L 'Customs' 2006.10.30 (01) [E]

Dear All,

Subject: LL-L 'Customs'

This string is so close to languuage issues I'd expect it to justify more
frequent attention.

Down in my neck of the woods the mixture has been stirred up a bit. In some
of the more Hugenot families it may still be customary for grown men of
irregular acquantance to kiss each other on both cheeks by way of greeting.
In my grandmother's day it was more frequent.

However there is the other side, where most family conversation happens in
the kitchen, is laconic in the extreme & sotto voce at the best of times.
Those of more garrulous inclination like our Irish relations find it
bizarre.

I heard from my mother's people, old Swartlanders, that when Gnl. Smuts
proposed to his Isie it went as follows:

Jan: "Sal ons trou?" (Shall we get married?)
Isie: "Ek gee nie om nie." (I don't mind.)
& yes: It happened in the kitchen.

& yet these two people & guests of their generation would entertain
themselves around the dinner table by swopping lines from the poets,
catching & capping verse for verse in the Taal, Nederlands, Flemish, German,
French, English, Scots, Latin & Greek: Only you see that's not
_conversation_. Television & radio both have a lot to answer for.

Yrs,
Mark 

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From: 'Global Moose Translations' [globalmoose at t-online.de]
Subject: LL-L 'Customs' 2006.10.30 (01) [E]

Rikus wondered:
>This is fascinating - what if you walked in just as your neightbor
>declared his love for his wife? Who would be 'at fault' - you, for
>walking in, or him, for declaring love in so public a place as his
>kitchen?

If a farmer from around here would tell his wife that he loves her anywhere
else but in the bedroom, and more than once a year, she would probably faint
on the spot, or break down laughing. For one thing, she probably already
knows (or knows that he doesn't, as the case may be). For another, he'd
probably have to be stone drunk in order to get that talkative.

Anyway, one can always knock first...

I think the real inflation of "I love you" in America started with cell
phones. There are plenty of people who end each and every phone call to
family members and possibly their boss, their minister and their dog's
groomer with "I love you" in an annoying sing-song tone, and ever since
they've been able to carry on like that in streets, restaurants, doctor's
waiting rooms and public toilets, you hear it everywhere.

There's a very funny pizza commercial on German TV, with a "typical"
American family that could come from any TV sitcom going, "I love you, son!"
"We love you, daaaad!" "We all love Moooom!" I love you, all, too!" "And we
love Wagner's Pizza! It's so American!" "Actually, Daddy, it's from
Deutschland!" "We love Deutschland!" etc.

Unfortunately, I do not find this terribly exaggerated...

Ron, you don't have any children as far as I know. When you have three of
them in public education, you get to mingle a whole lot more with people you
might not normally socialise with, but it provides some very intesting
insights, especially in remote rural areas of Oregon...

Dean Martin sang, long before Vietnam: "Tell her you love her each day...".
What is it with having to constantly repeat these things? Take the Pledge of
Allegiance, for instance. American school children are obliged to say it
each and every day, thus rendering it worthless. What good is a pledge if I
cannot remember from one day to the next that I already swore it?

Anyway, if I told any of my children (aged 13 through 22) that I love them,
they would laugh their heads off. Why would I have to? They have always
known, and they also know it is not going to change. They would just think
I've gone soft in the head in my old age. People in my family (which
includes good friends, too) are very close, we look out for each other, talk
often, and do whatever we can for each other. If anyone actually went round
saying, "I love you", "I appreciate what you did for me", "you're so
wonderful", etc., we would probably feel mocked and devaluated. And it would
be awfully embarrassing for everyone.

Ron wrote:
>A couple of days ago, a coworker of mine got a call from back
>in Boston and was told that her great-aunt had passed away and that she
>"shouldn't come." To the rest of us (mostly West Coast people) this
sounded
>rather strange, if not rude, and two persons from Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh
>respectively agreed with that. Being a New Englander herself Lisa
understood
>that this message meant "It would be nice if you could come, but we'd
understand
>if you weren't able or willing to." This reminded me a bit of my childhood
in
>which this sort of "code" or "double-talk" was common.

Actually, that's exactly the way I would understand it, too.

When my step-grandfather was about to die at 98, he asked my mother to tell
me to stay away from the funeral! I lived 600 km away then, with a
one-year-old and another one on the way, and he felt that a pregnant woman
should not attend a funeral at all. He said he wanted me to have a happy
baby!

Gabriele Kahn

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Customs

Hi, Gabriele!

I get around socially much more than you seem to assume I do.  I mingle with
people of many walks of life, a large age range and of all sorts of family
configurations, with and without children and grandchildren.  Here in the States
this mostly covers Seattle, Portland (Oregon), Eugene and the Greater San
Francisco Bay Area as well as rural and semi-rural communities around these and
also in Eastern Washington.  Yes, there's a wide array of ethnicities, and it
includes many immigrants, but the majority of these contacts are with
American-born European Americans, not only university-educated ones. 
Furthermore, I often visit schools, hospitals and retirement or senior care
facilities.

> Actually, that's exactly the way I would understand it, too.

So would I, wearing my North German and East European hats.  My point was that,
wearing my West Coast American hat, it sounded socially marginal, until I
realized that it was a Boston or general New England thing that seems unusual to
other Americans as well.

Another example is that people in the Southern States tend to talk even to
strangers in rather affectionate ways and address them with "honey," "sweetheart"
and such things.  Memories of several such encounters swirl around in my head,
for example matronly women saying to me things like "Come on over here now, baby,
and have a taste of this here pie your Miz Gloria made special for you!"  This
would come across as patronizing and whatever else in other areas of the country.
 But I hear it very differently within its Southern context, and I know that it's
not just a matter of words but is a matter of common and acceptable attitude
within a context in which hospitality, graciousness and cordiality even toward
strangers are permissible, encouraged and valued.

So, descent into automatic, unthinking platitude aside, my point is that context
is what counts as far as I am concerned.  While anything, any previously unknown
custom may take time to get used to, and some people have a harder time with this
than others, some may feel less comfortable with it than others, it's in my
opinion not a matter and right and wrong, better and worse, or even a matter of
"silly."  It's just a matter of context, intent and attitude.  Underlying this is
the assumption that the expressed sentiments are genuine.

Perhaps this becomes clearer to those who have had experiences surviving in
"exotic" cultures as baptism with fire.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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