RE=?iso-8859-1?Q?=A0=3A_?=SV: query: taboo against 3 people in picture

[Hewitt, Stephen]

It's the same as the English saying "one's lonely, two's company, three's a crowd"

Steve Hewitt


-------- Message d'origine--------
De: Discussion List for ALT de la part de Pedro Martins
Date: mer. 22/02/2012 15:26
À: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Objet : Re: SV: query: taboo against 3 people in picture
 
In Portuguese (at least, in European Portuguese), there's the expression:
"um é pouco, dois é bom, três é demais", which means "one is too few, two
is good, three is too much". It is regularly used when a situation arises
in which the norm is exactly two persons (being in a couple, for example)
and a third person wants to -- or finds himself in a position that make
others think he might -- be part of it.

Pedro

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 13:36, <vfriedm at uchicago.edu> wrote:

> Consider also the taboo against three on a match (for lighting cigarettes).
> I have heard that the belief dates from WWI trench warfare.  The
> explanation was that by the time the third person had lit up, the enemy had
> time to aim and fire.
> But the taboo itself was well known when i was in college.
> Victor
>
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:37:25 +0900
> >From: Discussion List for ALT <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG> (on
> behalf of David Gil <gil at EVA.MPG.DE>)
> >Subject: Re: SV: query: taboo against 3 people in picture
> >To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> >
> >Jan,
> >
> >Yes, even Indonesian has similar expressions.  However, in the case of
> >'three is a crowd' and such, I think the implicature is clearly that
> >four (and above) would be even worse, whereas in the case of the
> >3-people-in-picture taboo, a common way of solving the problem is to
> >invite an additional person into the picture -- the taboo is
> >specifically for three.
> >
> >David
> >
> >
> >
> >> Dear David,
> >>
> >> Hailing from a different part of the world, your query made me think of
> such phrases as 'Three is a crowd' and 'Ménage á trois', which suggest that
> three is one too many.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >> Jan
> >>
> >> -----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
> >> Från: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG]
> För David Gil
> >> Skickat: den 22 februari 2012 13:14
> >> Till: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> >> Ämne: query: taboo against 3 people in picture
> >>
> >> Dear all,
> >>
> >> Apologies for posting a non-linguistic query, but I'm interested in
> checking whether the non-linguistic feature in question correlates with a
> particular linguistic area, so perhaps all you field linguists out there
> can contribute some of your experiences.
> >>
> >>
> >> In many parts of mainland and insular Southeast Asia stretching into
> New Guinea, there is a taboo against three people posing for a photo.  One
> or two is fine, four, five and up is fine, but three is a no no.  In some
> places the taboo is strong, while in others it's just something people joke
> about.  Sometimes it is said that the person in the middle will meet
> misfortune or die.
> >>
> >> I have encountered this taboo in Cambodia, Sumatra, Borneo, Palawan,
> Luzon, Sulawesi, Maluku, and on a recent trip to the Baliem Valley in the
> Papuan highlands.  (Though not in Java or the lesser Sunda isles.) The
> areal distribution suggests that the taboo must be older than the advent of
> photography, perhaps extending back to drawings and paintings; the
> antiquity of the taboo is further supported by its presence amongst the
> Papuan highland Dani, whose first contact with the outside world was only
> in the 1940s (and it seems implausible that they would have picked up the
> taboo since then).
> >>
> >> My question is: where else is such a taboo present?  Are you familiar
> >> with it from any other parts of the world?   I would greatly appreciate
> >> both positive and negative data (the latter always being harder to
> obtain reliably).  I am particularly interested in delimiting the extent of
> the area listed above:  does the taboo exist further east in New Guinea and
> into the Pacific?  What about north into China, or west into South Asia?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >> --
> >> David Gil
> >>
> >> Department of Linguistics
> >> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Deutscher Platz 6,
> D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
> >>
> >> Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
> >> Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
> >> Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >--
> >David Gil
> >
> >Department of Linguistics
> >Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> >Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
> >
> >Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
> >Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
> >Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/
>

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