Folk Initialese

September 1, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Jean-Bruno Renard | Letters to Ambrose merton # 11, 1997

In March 1997, my friend and colleague, Frederic Monneyron, Professor of Comparative Literature at Universitie Stendhal, Grenoble, and an experienced globetrotter, sent me a little list which plays on the initials or names of airline companies. They are all in English and, in all probability, their invention has been spread over a period of thirty years.

TAP (Transportos Aeros Portugues: Air Portugal): Take Another Plane.
PIA (Pakistani International Airlines): “Please Inform Allah”.
BOAC (British Overseas Aircraft Corporation): “Better On A Camel”.
El Al (Israeli Airlines): “Every Landing Always Late”.
SAS (Scandanavian Air System): “Sex And Sun”.
Lufthansa (German Airlines): “Let Us Fuck The Hostesses As No Steward Available”.

If we regard these word plays as ironic, they can be seen as on the one hand critical of flight safety, of their speed and of their respect for timetables, and on the other hand as bawdy. The themes correspond to the popular image of aircraft, the black image of malfunction and danger, the rosy image of exotic eroticism. One finds these themes in narrative folklore, comic stories, rumours, contemporary legends. Airlines and the wordplay on initials share a common feature, they are international, a fact which is reinforced by their use of the language of world transportation, English.

This list set me thinking about “twisted initials” and here is the result.

To begin with some French examples.

VFD (Vehicule Ferroviaire du Dauphine: a transport company): “Veritable Feraille Dauphinoise” (Grenoble, 1980-1990). A “ferraille” here means a vehicle ready for scrap. This play on the initials is known only in the region of France where these coaches operate.
TATI (a chain of bargain stores): “Tous les Arabes Trainent Ici” (All the Arabs hang about here) or “Trop d’Arabes Trainent Ici” (Too many Arabs hang about here). This xenophobic wordplay alludes to the presence of North African workers in TATI shops.
CRS (Compagnies Republicaines de Securite): “Camions/Cars Remplis des Singes” (Lorries/coaches full of monkeys). The CRS is a mobile police unit charged with maintaining public order. They are mainly involved with the surveillance of, and sometimes the repression of, street demonstrations. This twist expresses the classic disparaging attitude of the French people to police authority. The attitude was sometimes expressed in a tougher form in May 1968 with the slogan “CRS = SS”.
PTT (Postes, Telegraphes et Telephone, French postal service): “Petit Travail Tranquille” (Quiet little job). A classic quip to mock the employees of PTT, who have the status of civil servants. (Date? The acronym PTT was introduced in 1899.)
RATP (Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, Paris regional transport authority): “Rentre Avec Tes Pieds” (Go home on foot). Heard in Paris in the 1960s, this gives comic expression to the irritation felt by Parisians in the face of bus and metro strikes.
CD (Corps Diplomatique, the distinguishing letters appearing on the registration plates of cars driven by the staff of foreign embassies): “Cornichon Diplome”. In French, “cornichon” literally means a gherkin but it is used figuratively to mean idiot or imbecile. Thus this wordplay can be translated roughly as “Certified idiot”. A handy oath for drivers upset by the behaviour of cars with CD plates.
URSS (Union des Republiques Socialistes Sovietique, in English, USSR): “Union Ratatinee des Saucissons Secs” (A shrivelled up union of dried sausages). This joke has given joy to several generations of French school children. I heard it myself in the 1950s. After the fall of the USSR in 1991, this joke is no doubt destined to disappear.

A play on initials was witnessed in the Second World War in Alsace, the region of France annexed by the Third Reich in 1941. Around 130,000 Alsatians were forced to wear German uniforms and serve in the Wehrmacht. These Alsatians turned NSDAP (National Sozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiter Partei) into “Nous Sommes Des Allemands Provisoire” (We are temporary Germans).

Another celebrated play on initials is that concerning the word Nylon. This new textile material was invented in 1937 by chemists from the firm Du Pont de Nemours. The discovery was made public in 1938. Here are two versions of the origin of the name. According to the first, the term was originally “no run”, then distorted phonetically in “nolen”, then “nolon” and finally “nylon”. According to the second version, which is more poetic, the word “nylon” was an acronym forded from the initials of the names of the wives of the chemists who worked to produce it: Nancy, Yvonne, Louella, Olivia, Nina. Whichever it is, the American people twisted “nylon” into the phrases “Now you lousy old Nippons” or “Now you lost old Nippons”. These twists were naturally the expression not only of a feeling of economic and technical victory, since nylon would replace the silk manufactured in the Far East, but also of a deeper anti-Japanese feeling which was very strong in the years up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The famous morse code signal of distress used throughout the world (three dots, three dashes, three dots) was chosen because of its extreme simplicity. It was not because it corresponded to the letters SOS in the morse alphabet and, not widely known, it was not until much later that it was translated as “Save Our Souls”.

The most recent manifestation of twisting initials as a folklore activity is in the naming of the “crews” of “writers” responsible for the graffiti appearing in the big cities of America and Europe in the 1970s. Here are a few examples:

In New York:

CIA: “Crazy Inside Artists”.
TNT: “The Nation’s Top”.

In Paris:

BBC: “Bad Boys Crew”.
COP: “Controle of Paris”.
CRS: “Crew Return Style”.
DCA: (Defense Contre Avions, Anti-aircraft defence): “Da Criminal Artists”.
FBI: “Fabulous Bomb Inability”.
MOS (Metal Oxide Semi-conductor): “Master Of Style”.
MST (Maladies Sexuellement Transmissibles, Sexually transmitted diseases): “Massacre Sans Tronconneuse” (Massacre without a chainsaw).
SAS “Sex And Shit”.
SOS “Secret Of Style”.
TCA (Taxe sur le Chiffre d’Affaires, Turnover tax): “The Chrome Angelz”.
TSA (Technologie de Systemes Automatises): “The Stoned Angelz”.
TVA (Taxe a la Valeur Ajoutee, in English, VAT): “The Vaginal Art”.

However, it must be stated that many of the initials used by these groups of “writers” do not correspond to acronyms already in existence. Consequently, it is possible that in some cases, the similarity between the initials used by a “crew” and a pre-existing acronym was simply a coincidence (for example, MOS, TCA or TSA, which are little known and little used acronyms, in contrast to BBC, FBI or MST). Note, by the way, the attraction to Parisian groups of American English, especially employing its slang, in imitation of American popular culture. Note too the appeal of three letter acronyms. As is well known, a ternary rhythm is common in folk products such as tales and songs.

Initials have been known since antiquity. The Hebrews, Greeks and above all the Romans often used abbreviations texts, public or private. Their misuse caused such difficulties in understanding that the emperor Justinian (5th Century A.D.) forbade their use in the Byzantine Empire. Today the abuse of abbreviations is proclaimed by the English expression “alphabet soup”. Specialists in ancient history have concluded that wrongly deciphered initials have caused errors in historical interpretation. It is now established that the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Boissard (1558-1602), who was one of the founders of epigraphy (the science of ancient inscriptions) completed in an erroneous manner numerous incomplete or abbreviated Latin inscriptions which he collected on Roman monuments in Italy.

There also exist anecdotes, real or legendary, about erroneous interpretations of pseudo-antique inscriptions, either made accidentally or provoked by deliberate hoaxers. Larousse’s Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX siecle recounts some in its article “Inscriptions”.

The Montmartre inscription merits a mention. It was an old block on which the following characters had been engraved:

CHEMI
NDESA
NES

An illustrious scholar, after much patient research, succeeded in producing this brilliant interpretation:
“Carmina Homeri et maronis illustrata nominibus ducum et scriptorum arte nullo exstinguentur saeculo”.
However, a local worthy took the block and read with ease:
“Chemin des anes” (Road for donkeys).

A mistake of the same kind was made by an archaeologist who came across an old crockery plate with the letters POMANS is large capitals. He judged its provenance to be Roman. In order to interpret the inscription, he believed it was necessary to add punctuation; P. O. MANS. S. This he deciphered as “Publii Ovidii manibus sacris” (To the sacred shades of Publius Ovidus). He was beside himself with joy to see, in our part of the world, a monument commemorating Ovid, the author of Metamorphoses. Imagine his mortification when he learned that this piece of pottery was quite simply manufactured in the Champagne region by a certain Monsieur Pomans.

One time, when a member of l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres was being examined, he was asked to be so good as to explain a curious little pot, elegant in form, and decorated with the letters M.J.D.D. in relief. The solution was readily apparent. This pot had without a doubt been consecrated to Jupiter and the four letters signified “Magni Jovi Deorum Deo” (To the great Jupiter, god of gods). “Good lord, no”, replied the hoaxer, “That should just read, Moutarde jaune de Dijon!” (Yellow Dijon mustard.)

A learned school was shown the copy of an inscription picked up, so it appeared, from an old Roman fountain. It looked like this:

RES
ER
VO
IR

The explanation is easy, said our scholar after a moment’s reflection. This was an abbreviated inscription which should be read thus: RESpublica ERigere VOluit ad IRrigandum. In other words; The Republic has decided to erect (this monument) for irrigation. Then it was pointed out to the scholar that if one were to read the inscription perpendicularly, one got the French (and indeed, English) word, RESERVOIR. But when did a scholar ever seek a simple interpretation?

With regard to abbreviation, without some knowledge of the background, initials are incomprehensible. No recourse to etymology helps to penetrate the secret of the meaning. The invention of a second meaning for the initials, a hidden message, fits a variety of motives. It may perhaps be a simple play on words intended to amuse. That is the case of the majority of twisted initials which one tells like a riddle, “Do you know what the initials […] stand for?” It may also be a play on words intended to create a secret recognition sign, for erxample, the initials of the “writer” groups in cities. This was no doubt the motivation for the early Christians when they invented the monogram for Christ “Ichthus”, which means “fish” in Greek but which is also the initials “Jesous Christos Theou Uios Soter” (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour).

I hope that this short note will encourage folklorists, amateur and professional, to collect “twisted initials” and explore this curious form of popular creation.

Note

Sandy Hobbs writes:

I have three points to add. The first is another suggestion I have heard as to the origin of the word “nylon”. Since it was developed as a result of the joint efforts of American and British scientists, it was decided to name it after the two major cities: New York, providing the NY, and London, providing the LON.

My second contribution is to recall, from the 1950s, the suggestion that the letters SPQR found on the standards of Roman legions did not stand for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the senate and people of Rome, as the textbooks claimed. The alternative explanation offered by my Latin teacher was “Small Profit, Quick Returns”, the Romans having been a nation of shopkeepers long before the British. I had the impression that this was an old joke.

Thirdly, may I suggest that “Massacre sans tronconneuse” for MST is a reference to the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre, known in France as Massacre a la Tronconneuse. If so, it must date from 1974 at the earliest.

A Special Harley Davidson

September 1, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 7, 1996

According to the Dutch newspaper, de Volkskrant, 23 October 1996, the following story had recently been circulating on the Internet. The newspaper refers to it as a “broodje aap“, the name by which contemporary legends are known in the Netherlands. Translation by Lois Hobbs.

A biker rides across the New Hampshire plain and sees, standing by a farm building, an old Harley Davidson. He rings at the adjoining house to ask if the owner of the motorbike wants to sell it. The owner will sell the bike for 800 dollars. Once home, the new owner cannot find the number necessary for a registration certificate. He rings a local Harley dealer and asks which places he should look. That leads to nothing.

As a last resort, he telephones the manufacturer and asks the person on the line to give him details about the performance of the motorcycle, especially about the saddle. He is surprised when the Davidson man asks “Can you look under the bike? See if there is anything written on the under side.” The biker confirms that he can see an engraving “To Elvis, Thanks. Harley Davidson”. Whereupon the Davidson company offer him 350 thousand dollars for it. The owner replies, “I just want to think it over”.

Afterwards, he phoned the Elvis Presley museum at Graceland in Memphis, and asked if the rock star ever had had a Harley. It is explained to him that the Harley Davidson firm had built him four special models by way of a present. Three already stand in the museum. “I have the fourth”, says the new owner. Graceland offers him three million dollars for it.

“I have to think it over.”

On the Fringes of Urban Legend: Homage to Brunvand

August 11, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | # ,

Some time around 1980, I started to organize a growing pile of notes into what I called the MODERN FOLK TALE file. Over subsequent years I have added to that file, not always very systematically and never managing to empty out the Miscellaneous file which feeds it. The MFT file now stands at well over 400 items. Some of these I have written about, many more have been written about by other people. Of course, the name “modern folk tale” now seems rather old fashioned. They are much more frequency called legends, with the qualification “contemporary”, “rumour”, “urban”, “modern” and “belief”. (“CRUMB” legends is what Gillian Bennett and I once called them.)

The term “urban legend” is being used here in acknowledgement of the work of Jan Harold Brunvand, who has employed that phrase. His book The Baby Train (1993) contains the closest attempt that I know of to a systematic listing of these stories. What follows is based on Brunvand’s listing, in that it contains some examples from the MFT file which DO NOT occur there.

The MFT file has been a working instrument. It has included items about which I had mused “Is that a modern folk tale?”. Sometimes that judgement turned out to be probably wrong, but it was nevertheless worth making, because it meant I kept an eye open for more evidence one way or the other.

In general, I have erred on the side of overinclusiveness. This has meant noting material which was perhaps too local or lacked a sufficiently strong narrative to become part of the urban legend corpus. Nevertheless, it seemed to me to be worthwhile to look at some of the “failed” items and reflect on why they didn’t make the Brunvand collection.

UL stands for Urban Legend(s); the number before each item is its MFT code; CLFB refers to Bennett and Smith (1993); LTAM stands for Letters to Ambrose Merton, DMT stands for its predecessor, Dear Mr Thoms…

007 HOWLERS

David Cornwell and I wrote about these in LTAM 1:1-5 and LTAM 2:26-36. Whilst they seem to circulate like UL, it probably makes sense to classify them apart from UL. However, the dividing line is fuzzy. In The Choking Doberman (1984: 26-27), Brunvand tells a story of how the Lord Chancellor processing through the Houses of Parliament shouted “Neil!” when he saw his friend, Neil Marten, M.P., only to find tourists around him falling to their knees. The same Neil/kneel mistake has appeared in a book of howlers, attributing it to new pupils in a primary school (see Hobbs, 1989).

010 TITANIC HEADLINE

A story to illustrate the parochial outlook of local newspapers is that when the Titanic sank, a local newspaper in Aberdeen headlined the report:

Aberdeenshire Man Drowns At Sea
He Was A Butcher In Union Street

Hamilton (1982) included this in a collection of “myths about the Titanic”. He reports that one of the two local papers in Aberdeen ran the headline:

Mid-Atlantic Disaster: Titanic Sunk By Iceberg

A rival paper had a similar headline. However, like UL, this “myth” has survival powers. I have seen or heard it attributed to papers in Bideford, Gateshead, Greenock and Norwich. Most recently I spotted it, ascribed to Aberdeen, in The Herald newspaper, 13 April 1987.

021 MURDERED SON

The story of the son returning home unrecognized, who is murdered by his parents, is most certainly a legend (see CLFB entry 782). But is it modern? It may no longer be currently “told as true”, perhaps because of its use by Camus in his famous play Le Malentendu (translated as Cross Purpose).

060 SECRET TUNNELS

The earliest use of the phrase “contemporary legend” I have come across is by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby (first published in 1925). Gatsby’s notoriety, writes Fitzgerald, “fell just short of being news” and “contemporary legends…attached themselves to him…” As an example of such a legend, Fitzgerald gives the “underground pipe-line to Canada”. I have never come across other references to underground pipe-lines, but the similar idea of a secret tunnel is quite widespread in Britain.

Many years ago, Alistair Steven gave me a reprint of an undated article he had written for a local newspaper in Scotland, in which he discussed tunnel claims. He argues that Scottish topographical writing is “plagued by a surfeit of stories which do not bear the weight of any close scrutiny…” As an example he casts doubt on the story of tunnels between castles in Perthshire.

What advantage would tunnels between castles have given which would have compensated for the immense amount of work involved? The greatest tunnel of the old world which the Romans drove under Monte Salviano to drain Lake Rucino went for three and a half miles…but it is said to have involved 30,000 labourers for 11 years. The kind of mind capable of constructing it was also capable of recording the construction. If there was anything at all approaching a Newton-Ardblair tunnel in Scotland why is nothing satisfactorily known about the system? James I would not have been murdered in Blackfriars Monastery had even the short sewage system there not been blocked. Had they been in use as an escape route, bigger castles than the Newton, whose lairds commanded regiments of men, would have had them. The Drummonds purchased the lands of Newton of Blair about 1550 and would build the original keep thereafter. George Drummond was on so poor terms with practically all his neighbours that four years later they banded together and murdered him…Amongst the murderous band was the laird of Ardblair. There is no record subsequently of any strong links between the families…How then could the tunnel be made?

Steven pours the cold water of historical detail over these tunnels. However, the story is not unique. For example, Enid Porter, in her Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore (1969) has two examples. On page 143 she refers to vaulted cellars under “Old Abbey House, a 17th century building built on the site of a 12th Century priory. A bricked up arch is traditionally regarded as the entrance to an underground tunnel. This is rather vague. Where did the tunnel go? However, on page 183, there is a more detailed tunnel story. It was supposed to run from Grantchester Manor to King’s College Chapel, in Cambridge. Furthermore, there is a narrative to go with the tunnel. A fiddler went to explore the tunnel and was never seen again. There is a local field name, Fiddler’s Close. This is the widespread legend of the Lughnasa Musician discussed very fully by David Buchan (1970).

The Lughnasa Musician is not always lost in a tunnel; sometimes there is a cave. However, the tunnel is a common feature. It may be objected that this is clearly a traditional, rather than a contemporary, legend. However, is there a sharp dividing line? One version David Buchan cites was collected orally only two years earlier than the publication of his paper. It concerned a tunnel between Paisley Abbey and Crookston Castle, two or three miles away.

066 A TAXI TO WICK

I opened a file on this story on the basis of a newspaper clipping I made and lost. The file was intended to alert me to look out for it appearing again. However, the file remains empty. The story is very simple. A London newspaper editor rings a journalist in Glasgow about a story he wants followed up. “I want you to take a taxi to Wick..,” he begins. That is the story. If it means nothing to you, it is because you don’t know Scotland. Wick is about as far from Glasgow as you can get on mainland Scotland. The taxi journey would be long and expensive. Perhaps the story is to elementary and its “meaning” too crude to have allowed it to develop into a fuller legend narrative. That London editor is an outsider who does not understand Scotland. There are lots of people in Scotland indulge in the hobby of anti-Englishness; perhaps if had moved in those circles I would have had a better chance of hearing about the taxi to Wick again.

067 SALMON TWICE A WEEK

This file contains notes of a conversation, a radio programme and a television programme. The least vague refers to the television programme I saw on BBC 1 on 27 June 1983 but which had apparently been first shown on BBC 2 in May 1979. Called “The River Keeper”, it was in a series called “A Year in the Life of…”. The keeper was Bernard Aldrich of Broadlands Estate. The narrator, appropriately enough, was called Tom Salmon. The programme referred to the decline in salmon stocks and said that at one time salmon was so plentiful it was food for apprentices and they complained about having to eat it every day.

My other notes refer to (a) apprentices having written into their indenture agreements a clause stipulating they would be fed salmon no more than twice a week, and (b) a similar stipulation being made by farm servants in the North Est of Scotland.

085 ORDERED NOT TO FAINT

On 14 July 1989, The Times newspaper reported that 300 children between the ages of seven and fifteen years had collapsed while marching in a jazz band competition at a carnival in Nottinghamshire. One explanation offered, and hotly disputed, was that it was a case of mass hysteria. During the debate which followed, one reader wrote the following letter, published 2 August 1980:

Sir, Between 1924 and 1929 I was a pupil at Cheltenham Ladies College.
One morning, a girl fainted during prayers, and there was a certain amount of confusion in taking her out of the hall. Next morning two girls fainted, and thereafter there was not a morning, but that two or three girls succumbed.
On the Friday, after prayers were over and she had given out the usual notices, the Principal, Miss Sparks said, “In the future, no girl will faint in College”.
No girl did – in my time,
Yours faithfully,
Mary Crisp…

My suspicion that this might be apocryphal was given support by a letter appearing on 6 August 1980.

Sir, When I was at Cheltenham Ladies’ College from 1917 to 1923, the story of the fainting girls was told in almost exactly Mrs Crisp’s detail of Miss Dorothea Beale, the great founding Principal who died in – I think – 1912.
Miss Sparks was maintaining a well-established tradition.
Yours sincerely,
I.K. Stephenson…

086 FISHING FOOTBALLS FROM THE RIVER

This is a very straightforward example of a story reported by a friend in the belief that it might be apocryphal. Listening to a radio commentary on 27 January 1979 of an F.A. Cup match between Shrewbury Town and Manchester City, he heard it claimed that the Shrewsbury club was so poor that it employed a man to fish footballs out of the river that ran past the ground. He was suspicious of this as he thought he had heard the same said of another team, possible Wigan Rugby League. I filed the story and waited.
On 13 February 1982, I heard a preview of an F.A. Cup match between Shrewsbury and Ipswich. The item included an interview an elder gentleman called Fred Davis, reminiscing about his job: fishing footballs from the river. Apparently in one match the ball went into the river eight time. The story was apparently true.

089 RATION BOOK FOR 1984

This file contains just three letters. Note that they are dated 1982.

8 February 1982
Dear Sandy,
Have you encountered at all recently the folk tale about someone (in the case brought to me “A fellow college student’s mother”) having sent to the appropriate government office for a Child Benefit form and receiving instead a food ration book dated 1984, and all properly made out with her name and address? I’d be interested to know if you have encountered this recently, because it used to resurrect itself from time to time.
Regards,
Norman [Norman Buchan M.P.]

12.2.82
Dear Norman,
I am sorry but I can’t give you much help on the ration book story. Although I can remember seeing references to it at least twice, I didn’t keep records because its “folk” status escaped me. One appearance was in Socialist Worker, I think, told with an obvious political point. More recently, I noticed a journalist appealing for someone who had actually seen a ration book to come forward. Now you’ve alerted me, I’ll be on the look out and let you know of any further sightings.
Yours sincerely,
Sandy Hobbs.

February 25 1982
Dear Sandy
Thanks very much for your note. Regarding its folk status:
(a)It’s a fairly common tale;
(b)It’s always happening to someone at second or third remove;
(c)It usually is accompanied by an embellishment to the effect that a policeman called next day and threatened them with dire consequences if they didn’t keep silent about it – as in this case.
I suppose it is all a rather bureaucratic concept for a folk tale!
Best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Norman.

In fact I don’t seem to have come across it again. Presumably, Brunvand would have classed this with his Government Legends.

115 JAM JARS AT THE CINEMA

In the essay “Enough to constitute a legend?”, which I contributed to The Questing Beast (Bennett and Smith, 1989), I took a critical look at the debate about whether British cinemas ever accepted empty jam jars as payment for admission. That debate goes on.

What follows is abridged from “Mystery of the jeelie jar” by Frank McGroarty, which appeared in The Herald newspaper, 16 December 1995, in a special supplement celebrating the centenary of the cinema.

Every household takes for granted the common jam jar. However, during the early years of the century it was more than just a way to store preserves. It was a form of currency.

In those days, the jam (jeelie) jar was a prized possession among youngsters. They were exchanged for money or sweets at the local grocer’s, would pay for fairground rides, and according to many mature members of today’s society, the jars would pay for the price of a cinema admission ticket.

The connection between jeelie jars and the cinema is the only part of that legend that is hotly disputed, even till this day. For every former patron who said that it did not happen, there were those regular customers who have strong recollections of paying their way in with jam-jars and in some cases lemonade bottles.

Many film historians are convinced that this story was myth because according to them, such a practice would have been illegal. At that time cinemas had to give a percentage of the money raised from admission tickets to the Customs and Excise, to pay what was an entertainment tax, which ran from the time of the First World War until the early fifties. So they believed that paying in by the jam jar method deprived the taxman of his cut.
Another point raised was that…a typical cashier’s desk was so small, that there would be nowhere to store the empty jars.

However, Dunfermline sports coach, and film fan, believes in the jamjar story and was able to explain how cinemas used to get round that problem based on regular conversations with his parents.

“They used to say that there were two queues, one leading to the cash desk and one for those with jam jars, which was often referred to as the poor queue,” he said. “They handed the jar to the man who would then place it in a box, and then hand them a ticket. They would then take it to the cash desk where they would be given an admission ticket.”

One former customer, Ray Hannah, used to go to the local cinemas in Blackburn in the forties and remembers often getting himself into trouble when collecting his jars to take to the cinema. “I got many a whack with a bannister brush after being caught supping the jam in the garden shed in order to get the empties,” he said…
Even though noted film historian, Frank Manders, has not discovered any documentary evidence, he is convinced that such a practice did exist.

“There are certainly many cinemas that did not allow jam jars, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that it happened at the small picture houses,” he said.

Memories of admission by jam jar are widespread. When the Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Mail, ran a story on the subject, it was “mobbed” with letters, of which it published five (21 June 1992). One appeared to recall the circumstances in great detail:

“At the Wellfield Cinema in Springburn, Glasgow, you could get in for three jam jars on a Wednesday afternoon between four and 4.30.”

Two indicate that jam jars were not a unique alternative to cash:

“A jeelie jar…got you into the Victoria in Greenock. And so did a label from a packet of Lyons tea.”

“In Saltcoats you could get in for a wrapper from Cowan’s soap as well as a jam jar.”

These could presumably have been the result of promotional schemes by the companies concerned. One reader remembered getting change!

“A one pound jar got you in, and if all you had was a 2lb jar they gave you sweets for change.”

Rather less plausible, apparently, is change the other way round:

“I once went to the pictures with half a crown (30 old pence) and got 29 bottles in change.”

However, Michael Thomson (1988) in his history of cinemas in Aberdeen, cites a story in a local newspaper in March, 1921, in which a boy was said to have received eleven jam jars change when he paid for his ticket with a shilling. Thomson believes the jam jar practice lasted from approximately the First World War until around 1935.

I have also come across references to the jam jar admission in Edinburgh (Community History Project, n.d.), Sheffield (Vickers, 1987) and York (York Oral History Project, 1988). However, these are all memories of members of the audience. I have still to find either documentary evidence or recollections by cinema staff.

120 SHOVE OFF, CHARLIE!

This was collected from a letter to the editor in Expression! The Magazine for American Express Cardmembers, May 1985. The writer starts by stating that this is one of his favourite business anecdotes, but is probably apocryphal. It concerns a young advertising executive, rising fast but as yet relatively unknown.

Hoping to close his biggest deal yet, he booked lunch at the Ritz. Awaiting his guest nervously, wondering how best to create the right impression, he spotted Sir Charles Clore heading for the restaurant, and had his inspiration.

Brashly approaching the great man, he introduced himself, explained his situation, and begged Sir Charles to do him a tremendous favour by somehow indicating (in the client’s presence) that they were mutually acquainted.

The sheer impudence of the request touched a soft spot with Clore – perhaps reminding him of his own early days – and when the young man and his guest sat down to lunch he delivered the favour handsomely, striding across to their table, beaming with outstretched hand, “My dear chap, how nice to see you! How’s everything with you?”

The young man responded with a pained expression. “Oh shove off, Charlie. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

I felt fairly confident that I’d come across this story again, but in fact this clipping sits alone in the file.

413 FALKLANDS VETERAN

David Cornwell provided me with the following text on 21 March 1989. He had heard the story two or three weeks previously from a colleague at Jordanhill College of Education at Glasgow. I had asked him to write it down because I had heard essentially the same story two days earlier from John Widdowson, who reported it as the content of a cartoon.

This guy was sitting on the pavement in Argyle Street with his cap upside down in front of him, begging for money. He was covered in cuts and bruises, all scarred. He had only one arm, and one leg. He was blind. A sign hung around his neck read “Falklands Veteran. Please give generously.” No one paid any attention to him, and no one gave him any money. People just walked by, walked around him. This other guy notices that no one is giving the beggar any money. He says, “Come on, what’s wrong with you all,” shouting at the passersby. “This man has fought for his country. He’s been wounded and suffered greatly…Come on, give him some money.” The passersby seem embarrassed by all of this, and keep a wide berth of the man. They still don’t give any money. “Come on,” shouts the man, “Give him some money. Here! I’ll start this off.” And he pulls out his wallet and takes out a ?10 note. He throws it into the beggar’s hat. The beggar looks up at the mind and says, “Gracias, senor”.

Almost three years later, in his column in The Observer newspaper (19 January 1992), Simon Hoggart told the following version:

You may have heard this joke, but I pass it on anyway because it was told me by one of Lady Thatcher’s best known and most intimate confidantes. It seems that the Lady was passing by some homeless beggars and had a crisp word of advice for each: “Smarten up, there are plenty of jobs to be had”, and so forth. Then she came to a pitiable figure with the words “Falklands Veteran” around his neck.

Overcome by sorrow and gratitude, she instructed an aide to find a ?20 note. The derelict’s eyes popped with astonishment as he sobbed: “Muchas gracias, senora!”

References

Bennett, Gillian & Smith Paul. Contemporary Legend: A Folklore Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1993.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Choking Doberman And Other “New” Urban Legends. New York: Norton, 1984.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Baby Train And Other Lusty Urban Legends. New York: Norton, 1993.

Buchan, David. “The legend of the Lughnasa Musician in Lowland Britain”, Scottish Studies, 23: 15-37, 1970.

Community History Project. Jeelie Jars and Barrie Coats. [This twenty page pamphlet, reporting a project undertaken at Silverlea Day Care Unit, Lothian Region, has neither publisher’s name nor date.]

Hamilton, Alan. “Sunk at last: some myths about the Titanic”, The Times, 15 April 1982.

Hobbs, Sandy. “Enough to constitute a legend?” in G. Bennett and P. Smith (Eds.), The Questing Beast, Perspectives on Contemporary Legend IV, pages 55-75. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989. [Am earlier exploration of the edges of legend.]

Porter, Enid. Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore. London: Routledge, 1969.

Thomson, Michael. Silver Screen in the Silver City: A History of Cinemas in Aberdeen, 1896-1987. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. {Appendix 1, pp 339-340: The Great Jam Jar Controversy.]

Vickers, J. Edward. A Popular History of Sheffield (2nd ed.) Sheffield: Applebaum, 1987.

York Oral History Project. York Memories of Stage and Screen: Personal Accounts of York’s Theatres and Cinemas. York: York Oral History Project, 1988.

Funerary customs among the Nepa

August 11, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Bill Ellis | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 19, 1999

There have been some postings recently on the contemporary custom of commemorating those who had died in auto accidents with impromptu roadside shrines. This article appeared in the Hazleton Standard Speaker recently and documents some memorial practices that seem to be related to this complex. Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) is truly an interesting place for folk culture.

Vigil Honors Memory of Edward Speshock Jr.

[Hazleton Standard Speaker, 9 January 1998: 19, 28.]

After 10 years, the memory of Edward Speshock Jr. lives on in the hearts of his family and friends. A candlelight memorial service held Thursday in honor of the Hazleton man proved it.

Nearly 20 people gathered in the Transfiguration Cemetery in West Hazleton to remember Speshock, who was killed Jan. 8, 1988 in an automobile accident. Thursday marked the 10?year anniversary of his death.

The evening service, which lasted about 20 minutes, was conducted by the candlelight each participant held. Several songs, including Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” were performed with the help of an acoustic guitar.

Several friends and relatives shared personal stories about “Eddie” and told what they remember most about him. A prayer was also recited.

A number of those gathered ritualistically drank half of the alcohol from a shot glass, and poured the rest on the grave.

But most notably, Evelyn, Speshock’s mother, knelt down and kissed the headstone of her son.

People of all ages attended the service. One young girl at the ceremony was merely a toddler at the time of Speshock’s death, but her age did not stop her from honoring a loved one.

At the end of the service, the friends and family of Edward Speshock Jr. left the cemetery the same way they had arrived: together.

Lost Lives

August 7, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 22, 2000

David, McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton. Lost Lives: The stories of the men and women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1999, 1630 p. Index.

This is a most unusual book. The authors set out to give an account of every person who has died as a result of the “troubles” in Northern Ireland since the 1960s. The entries are chronological, starting with a first death in June, 1966 and ending with case number 3637 in July 1999. Regrettably this means the work is not definitive, since the deaths continue. The authors seek to set out the facts in calm and measured terms. The book contains statistically analysis classifying both the dead and those responsible for the deaths by religion and other categories. Yet, one can well believe that the authors “shed tears while researching and writing” the book (p. 13) and I cannot imagine any reader failing to be moved by some of the stories which are told in these pages.

This book could be read as a sociological, historical or political document and reviewed accordingly. However, for readers of Ambrose Merton, I wish to draw attention to the fact it contains a great deal of material bearing on the popular culture of Northern Ireland. The deeply felt traditional beliefs which are part of the conflicts in Northern Ireland are in certain respects obvious. They had to be taken into account by David McKittrick and his fellow authors when preparing the book:

“We produced a style guide which, with its regulations and examples, grew into a 12,000-word document. We tried to avoid contentious or disputed words, seeking always usages which would give offence to no one. In this context Northern Ireland’s second largest city defeated us, and we sought refuge in a mixture of an uneasy compromise and random use. In introducing victims we use the word L/Derry; after that, we simply use Londonderry and Derry interchangeably” (p. 19).

The problem they faced was that “Londonderry” is the name favoured by members of the Protestant, Loyalist community and “Derry” is preferred by the Catholic, Republican community. The point may seem trivial to outsiders but not to many of the inhabitants of Northern Ireland. A cultural dispute of this sort lies on a continuum which includes a belief, testified to by many of the cases in the book, that merely to be a member of one or other of these communities would make a person a legitimate target for an assassin.

Many of the entries take for granted an awareness of the assumption made by paramilitary groups that they had a right to enforce “law and order” in their communities. Some deaths appear to have been “punishments” for activities such as drug-dealing or informing. The small photographic sections includes a number of commemorative murals, this form of outdoor art being a prominent feature of the Northern Ireland troubles. There is also a striking photograph of a wake for a man killed while attending a funeral. {Murders committed while the victim is mourning or worshiping have a particular cultural resonance.) His coffin is open and a young child is being shown the corpse.

One of the first victims described in the book (Case No, 3, pp. 28-29) was Matilda Gould, a 77 year old widow, who was a Protestant. It appears that members of the Protestant para-military group, the Ulster Volunteer Forces, intended to set fire to a Catholic owned bar. However, they accidentally fire-bombed the home of Mrs Gould, who happened to live next door. A statement attributed to a man convicted of the murder of a Catholic barman is worth close examination. He was reported as having later pointed to the bar next to Mrs Gould’s home and saying:

“That’s a job I done, but I done a funny wonder. I threw a petrol bomb through the wrong window and an old lady got burned. That’s the window, I put it through there.”

Here we have him acknowledging responsibility for a death. It seems probable that he knew that she was a member of his own religious community. Yet his language habits are so taken for granted that he can use the rhyming slang “funny wonder”, meaning blunder, to refer to his own actions.

Tae a Fert

August 7, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 22, 2000

Sandy Hobbs
LTAM 22, 2000

This poem has been circulating recently in Paisley as a piece of photocopylore. The first line was missing from the copy supplied to me. However, since this is evidently a parody of Robert Burns’s address to a mouse, it seems likely that it ended in the word “beastie”.

Lurks in yer belly efter the feastie
Just as ye sit doon among yer kin
There sterts to stir and enormous wind*

The neeps and tatties and mushy peas
Stert working like a gentle breeze
But soon the pudding wi sauncie face**
Will have ye blawin all ower the place

Nae matter whit the hell ye dae
A’bodys gonnae have tae pay
Even if ye try to stifle
It’s like a bullet oot a rifle

Hawd yer bum tight tae the chair
Tae try and stop the leakin air
Shifty yersel fae cheek tae cheek
Prae tae God it doesnae reek

But aw yer efforts go assunder
Oot it comes like a clap a thunder
Ricochets aroon the room
Michty me a sonic boom

God almighty it fairly reeks
Hope I huvnae shit ma breeks
Tae the bog I better scurry
Aw whit the hell, its no ma worry

A’body roon aboot me chokin
Wan or two are nearly bokin
I’ll feel better for a while
Cannae help but raise a smile

Wis him! I shout with accusin glower
Alas, too late, hes just keeled ower
Ye dirty bugger they shout and stare
A dinnae feel welcome any mair

Where e’re ye go let yer wind gan’ free
Sounds like just the job for me
Whit a fuss at rabbies perty***
Ower the sake o’ won wee ferty***

* “and” should presumably be “an”.
** the haggis
*** Rabbie’s party, i.e a Burns Supper
**** “won” should presumably be “one”

The White Lady of Longnor

August 7, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Gillian Bennett | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 22, 2000

This text appeared in the Buxton Advertiser, 24 June 1933, where it is attributed to “an old copy of the Longnor Parish Magazine”. It was noted by Gillian Bennett, who suggests that the story is reminiscent of The Devil in the Disco.

The White Lady of Longnor comes out of the adjacent Black Pool, and flits about the roads. She was disappointed in love, rural gossips say, and so perambulates at the old trysting time, in hope to meet her faithless swain once more, and find him true.

She has been seen almost within living memory. On one occasion, Hughes, “the parson’s man”, of Longnor saw what he believed to be a graceful and stylish young damsel walking towards him, apparently expectant of a kind welcome.

Hughes was nothing loth to afford it her, so, as she drew near, he opened his arms wide to encircle her with a fervent embrace. But she had “melted into air”, into thin air”; or, in his own words, he thought to clasp warm flesh and blood, “an theer wor nuthin”.

In the same parish there used to be a public house called “The Villa” where much junketing, merrymaking, and dancing was in vogue amongst the rustics on high days and holidays.

Here there suddenly appeared amongst the pleasure party a sweet, fresh lovesome girl, dressed all in white, as if for a festal occasion.

She danced with one swain after another, and the fun grew fast and furious till at length the more sedate members of the party began to exchange suspicious glances, and suddenly the whisper went forth, “The White Lady of Longnor”.

The whisper had barely gone the round when the place of the strange visitor was void. She had disappeared as suddenly and unaccountably as she came. This was her wont, and the party, in compliance, broke up and dispersed.

As a labourer, who was practically a contemporary of the incident, remarked, “Theer was never no more dancin’ at ‘The Villa’ “.

The Meme and the Operant

August 1, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs and David Cornwell | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 27, 2002

This is an edited version of a paper read at the Association for Behavior Analysis International Conference, Venice, November 2001. Although written primarily for psychologists, we hope it will be of interest to a wider audience. It contrasts a behaviourist approach to contemporary legend (derived from B.F. Skinner’s concept of “operant conditioning”) with an approach derived from Richard Dawkins’s concept of the “meme”.

The concept of a “meme” was first proposed by Richard Dawkins, in his book The selfish gene (1976). This remarkable volume, aimed simultaneously at expert, student and layman, has been the subject of lively debate. Put briefly, Dawkins proposed a new emphasis in Darwinian thinking. Whereas Darwin had focused on the survival and evolution of species, Dawkins argued that to focus on the gene was now more powerful analytically. To this relatively prosaic proposal, Dawkins added a metaphor, taking the term “selfish”, normally applied to human behavior, and attached it to the gene as a way of highlighting his point. The fact that “selfishness” is not itself a particularly precise concept may be noted.

Returning to the more prosaic side of Dawkins’s case, the next significant feature is that he treats the gene as a “replicator”. Another example of a replicator which he suggested is something for which he felt obliged to invent a new term, the “meme”. “Meme” is suggested as a cultural equivalent to the gene. Although described rather casually in the thirteen page final chapter of Dawkins’s book, the term has met with some success. Sampling the World Wide Web on 29 August 1998, Dawkins found 5042 mentions of the adjectival form “memetic” (Dawkins, 1999). A number of books have been devoted to the meme, most notably Susan Blackmore’s The meme machine (1999), which includes a Foreword by Dawkins in which he writes (1999, p xvi):

Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme.
Dawkins is not alone in praising the book. Another biologist, Matt Ridley, writing on Darwin in a series entitled “Giants Refreshed” for the Times Literary Supplement, presents Dawkins and Blackmore as the latest key stages in the development of Darwinian thought:

The theory of the selfish gene has swept all before it in modern evolutionary theory… But ironically, an even more unsettling theory is beginning to replace this approach: memes… Susan Blackmore has demonstrated that just as our bodies are the victims and vehicles of genes, so our minds may be victims and vehicles for ideas or memes… All this is a long way from Darwin himself, but it is his true intellectual legacy… (1999, p 13)

Note the terminology here; to the “selfishness” of the gene we now find added the idea that human beings are “victims” of memes.

Are we then in the presence of a major development in intellectual history? Perhaps, but lest we get carried away, we should note that in a subsequent issue of the same periodical, another biologist, Matthew Cobb, referred to the idea that the fittest memes survive as “tautological” and suggested it is merely a “silly dinner-party idea” (2000, p 17). Despite the enthusiastic acceptance of the concept of the meme by some writers, approval of the meme is by no means universal.

Given that there are innumerable non-behavioral terms in use which are applied to human behavior, it may be necessary at this stage to offer some justification for casting a behavioural eye over this particular example. There are two which are fairly easy to explain. First, Dawkins, who formulated the term, has written sympathetically about Skinner’s concept of selection by consequences (Dawkins, 1988), although as far as we are aware without attempting to relate the concept of the meme to that of the operant. Secondly, in her book on the meme, Blackmore, although a psychologist of a non-behavioral bent, nevertheless argues that much human behavior emerges according to the laws of operant conditioning. She acknowledges that much of what humans do is built and shaped by consequences. We tend to repeat actions which are followed by rewarding outcomes.

However, the third reason is a little more complex. It concerns a set of phenomena known usually as “contemporary legends” or “urban legends”. For several years, we have been attempting to bring a little behaviorist precision to a scholarly field where, in our view, vagueness has played too big a part (see, for example, Hobbs, 1987, Hobbs, 1989, Hobbs and Cornwell, 1991). One argument we have put forward is that the very concept “contemporary legend” should be questioned. Analysis might show that the phenomena currently so labelled might be better seen as examples of a broader, more carefully defined category. One of the leading legend scholars has suggested that this point of view which we have advocated has similarities to the suggestions of those who employ the concept of a “meme” (Brunvand, 2001). This gave us pause for thought and further encouraged us to look more closely at the meme.

But to which phenomena is the term “meme” applied? Dawkins (1976) , initially lists as examples, “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches” (p 206) and later includes “the idea of God” (p 207). Blackmore deals with a wide range of topics including the origins of language, religion, the concept of an inner self and altruism. However, in explaining the concept of a meme, conveniently enough for the purposes of this paper, she starts with a contemporary legend:

Have you heard the one about the poodle in the microwave? An American lady, so the story goes, used to wash her poodle and dry it in the oven. When she acquired a brand new microwave oven, she did the same thing. Bringing the poor dog to a painful and untimely death. Then she sued the manufacturers for not providing a warning “Do not dry your poodle in this oven” – and won! (Blackmore, 1999, p 14)

Like Dawkins, Blackmore argues that a meme may be regarded as the cultural equivalent of the biological concept, the gene. The gene is a replicator and has three defining characteristics, variation, selection and retention. A meme is claimed to have those same characteristics and, at least at a superficial level, the case can be made that a story such as the one just cited has the characteristics of a replicator and hence may justifiably be termed a “meme”. These stories are told and retold, they change in the telling, and, since not all stories are passed on, those which are may thus been seen as having been selected.

However, it must be noted Blackmore deals with this contemporary legend (and indeed with other examples of memes) in a rather casual fashion. She does not refer to any specific texts collected by legend scholars and does not refer to any of the scholarly literature on such stories (see, for example, Bennett and Smith, 1993, Brunvand, 2001). In Blackmore’s defence, it might be argued that this scholarly literature has not so far presented its data in a form which would encourage her to use it. To justify the claim that contemporary legends show the characteristics of retention, variability and selection, one would need evidence which allowed us to compare different versions of a story over time. At present that is difficult to do. Difficult but not impossible.

As an illustration of the possibilities, we shall take another contemporary legend, usually referred to as The Boyfriend’s Death.

Figure 1

There were two people parked along this dark road. They were both drinking beer and after several beers the boy had to take a leak. He left the car and disappeared into the woods to position himself behind a tree. After several minutes the girl had become worried because the boy hadn’t returned. From the roof she heard a light tapping sound. She got out to call him but noticed something in the dark hanging above the car from a large tree. It was her boyfriend and he had been hung by the neck.

Text A1, collected in Kansas, 1964 (Barnes, 1966)

This single text tells us little and does not itself throw much light on whether or not we are in the presence of a meme, so we shall compare it with that in Figure 2, a text collected over twenty years later in Scotland.

Figure 2

The story was that there was a young man who had come from Aviemore who had taken his wife on honeymoon to Australia. And they were out driving in the car and the car had run out of petrol. So he was going off to get some petrol, telling her not to get out of the car. He goes off and time passes and she falls asleep. She wakes up in the darkness with a banging noise on the roof of the car and the police car sitting up ahead. And the police approach her, take her out of the car, and take her up to the police car and tell her not to look back. And she looks back and she finds an aborigine man sitting on top of the car with a pole and her husband’s head on top of the pole.

Text B3, collected by Sandy Hobbs, Paisley, 1988.

Even a casual inspection shows that there are differences between the two. The later text is about fifty per cent longer (143 words compared to 93). It contains detailed references to places, Aviemore and Australia, and to people, an aboriginal man and the police. Nevertheless the two texts contain enough in common to justify treating this as a single story: a man and a woman in a car, the man leaves the car, the man is later found dead. However, calling these texts “the same” story implies not just that there are elements in common but also that there are chains of retellings, in the course of which variations occur.

How plausible is such a claim? The main justification lies in the fact that stories with these three basic elements have been collected in different locations of the United States and the British Isles over the intervening years. Table 1 brings together information on 14 different texts (including those laid out in Figures 1 and 2). However, the manner of presentation differs from that usually adopted in contemporary legend scholarship. The common features and certain other recurring elements have been abstracted from the texts published and presented in tabular form in as near to chronological order as the information published about these texts allows us to determine.

Although these represent only a tiny fraction of the many times the story has probably been told, the information provided from this sample could actually be used by Blackmore in support of at least part of her case. The story has been retained over time and replicated. The story shows variations. The question of selection is less straightforward. We have no evidence here of this story being “selected” rather than any others. However, given that some elements not in the earliest texts become almost fixed in later versions, the story may be seen as being changed in ways which faciliate its survival.

Table 1 (a)

TEXT(b)

A10

A11

Man and woman in car

On a date

Warning heard

Out of gas/petrol

Man leaves car

Woman hears noises

Police arrive

“Don’t look back”

Man murdered

Man found (c)

Killer Seen

Collected

’64

’68

’71

’76

’79

’80

’82

’88

(a) X indicates present
(b) A USA / B British Isles
(c) H Hanged U Hanged upsidedown D Decapitated

The state of the dead man becomes more gruesome, initially hanging, then hanging upsidedown, then decapitated. The sight of the killer adds to the horror. The woman’s discovery of her companion’s fate is made more dramatic, first, by the arrival of the police and, secondly, by their warning “Don’t look back”. If these changes make the story more effective, then these variations may indeed facilitate the story’s survival.

Thus it might be suggested that if Blackmore were to look more carefully than she has so far at evidence collected by legend scholars she would not find anything likely to discomfort her. At this point, however, it is perhaps necessary to recall that the title of this paper is “The meme and the operant”. This means that another question must be raised. Is the evidence summarized in Table 1 sufficient to justify the need for the concept of the meme, as opposed to those proposed by writers adopting the perspective of behavior analysis.

Writing specifically on contemporary legend from an explicitly behaviorist perspective is fairly limited. We offered a simple behavior analysis model about a decade ago (Hobbs and Cornwell, 1991) and a social contingency analysis by Guerin and Miyazaki is currently in press. We would suggest that the evidence in Table 1 is entirely compatible with such analyses. For example, if, as Guerin and Miyazaki propose, the primary functions of such stories are to hold the attention of the audience and to entertain them, then the changes noted may be seen as faciltitating these processes. The arrival of the police and the words of the warning hold the audience in suspense as they await the disclosure to the man’s fate. It has been demonstrated by Slotkin (1988) that the same person may tell the same story quite differently on different occasions. Amongst other outcomes, this gives the individual the opportunity to learn which variations are most effective.

Our argument then is that the data collected to throw light on the plausibility of the meme, however limited, may also be interpreted as demonstrating the plausibility of an operant analysis. Is this outcome likely to be restricted to contemporary legends as opposed to other forms of cultural transmission. We think not. Consider an analysis present by Dawkins in the second (1989) edition of The Selfish Gene.

Dawkins is quite explicit in claiming the physical character of memes, writing that “If memes in brains are analogous to genes they must be self-replicating brain structures, actual patterns of neuronal wiring-up that reconstitute themselves in one brain after another” (Dawkins, 1989, p 323). He goes on to distinguish between memes and their “phenotypic” effects. However, when discussing the supposed processes whereby memes function, he is forced to deal in these “phenotypes”. In one example (Dawkins, 1989, p 328) he demonstrates that he and E. O. Wilson were independently responsible for a “mutant meme”, when they incorrectly cited a paper actually called “The genetic evolution of social behaviour” as “The genetic theory of social behaviour”. This mutated title was subsequently adopted by other authors. However, the use of this quasi-biological terminology is surely unnecessary. Dawkins himself suggests that the “mutation” was not random, but was influenced by the title of a famous work in their field “The genetic theory of natural selection”. This quite plausible suggestion is surely quite easily accommodated within an analysis which treats these titles as topographically similar operants. Dawkins’s suggestion of an underlying neuronal wiring adds nothing to our understanding of these events.

The memetic and the operant approaches to the evolution of human culture have some features in common. This is clear in the following passage from Baum’s Understanding behaviorism:

A group’s culture consists of learned behavior shared by members of the group, acquired as a result of membership of the group, and transmitted from one group member to another. Evolution of culture occurs in a manner parallel to shaping of operant behavior and genetic evolution – variation coupled with selective transmission. The unit of selection – the things that vary and are selectively transmitted – are replicators. A replicator is any entity capable of producing copies of itself. A good replicator possesses longevity, fecundity, copying fidelity and efficacy. (Baum, 1994, p 231)

The key differences between the approaches is surely a matter of parsimony. To the behavior analyst the reference to underlying neural structures is unnecessary as it adds nothing to our understanding. However, given that both parties deal for the most part in generalities in discussing culture and have in the past been unable to cite evidence beyond the anecdotal level, it is difficult to imagine either side succeeding in demonstrating the superioity of their model. However, we do not suggest that we should conclude from this that dialogue is pointless.

We challenge the advocates of the “meme” on two fronts. First, as Baum has done, we should question what the reference to a supposed neural underpinning is adding to our understanding of cultural replicators. Secondly, we invite them to produce or consider data on transmission so that the relative strengths of memetic and operant analyses may be tested. It is in this latter respect that revised ways of examining contemporary legends may play a useful part.

It is probably necessary to end by making clear what we are saying about the data in Table 1. First, although it is “abstracted” from the various texts, it is nevertheless based on verbal behavior. Secondly, although the data contained in Table 1 is obviously limited, there are substantial possibilities of expanding it, by adding information on other tellings of the same story, by undertaking similar analyses of other stories and even for generating analogous data in controlled experimentation.

References

Barnes, D. R. (1966) Some functional horror stories on the Kansas University campus, Southern Folklore Quarterly, 30, 305-312.

Baum, W. M. (1994) Understanding behaviorism: Science, behavior and culture. New York: HarperCollins.

Bennett, G. and Smith, P. (eds.) (1993) Contemporary legend: A folklore bibliography. New York: Garland.

Blackmore, S. (1999) The meme machine. London: Oxford University Press.

Brunvand, J. H. (2001) Encyclopaedia of urban legends. Denver CO: ABC-Clio.

Cobb, M. (2000, 18 February) Darwin and human behaviour, Times Literary Supplement, 17.

Dawkins, R. (1976) The selfish gene. London: Oxford University Press.

Dawkins, R. (1988) Replicators, consequences, and displacement activities, pp 33-35 in Catania, A. C. and Harnard, S. (eds.) The selection of behavior: The operant behaviorism of B. F. Skinner: Comments and consequences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dawkins, R. (1989) The selfish gene. (2nd Ed.) London: Oxford University Press.

Dawkins, R. (1999) Foreword, pp vii-xvii in Blackmore, S. The meme machine. London: Oxford University Press.

Guerin, B. and Miyazaki, Y. (forthcoming) Rumors, gossip, and urban legends: A social contingency theory, Summa Psicologica.

Hobbs, S. (1987) The social psychology of a “good” story, pp. 133-148 in Bennett, G., Smith, P. and Widdowson, J. D. A. (eds.) Perspectives on contemporary legend Volume II. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Hobbs, S. (1989) Enough to constitute a legend?, pp 55-75 in Bennett, G. and Smith, P. (eds.) The questing beast: Perspectives on contemporary legend Volume IV. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Hobbs, S, and Cornwell, D. (1991) A behavior analysis model of contemporary legend, Contemporary Legend, 1, 93-106.

Ridley, M. (2000, 28 January) From the bottom up, Times Literary Supplement, 13-14.
Slotkin, E. (1988) Legend genre as a function of audience, pp 89-111 in Bennett, G. and Smith, P. (eds.) Monsters with iron teeth: Perspectives on contemporary legend III. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Note: The correct citation for the paper noted above as “Guerin and Miyazaki (forthcoming)” is:
Guerin, B and Miyazaki, Y. (2003) Rumores, chisme y leyenda urbanas: una teoria de la contingencia social, Revista latinoamericana de Psicologia, 35, 257-272.

A Ghostly Hitcher

July 24, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Bill Nicolaisen | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 13, 1998

A businessman was driving home to Scotland after a two-day trip down south, when, in the darkness, he saw a small figure walking along the hard shoulder. There was something odd about the way they were walking, he says, and stopped to see if they needed help. The figure, a young woman, never said a word and looked as if she was in shock, and he assumed she had been in an accident so insisted he take her to the nearest police station or hospital. She wordlessly got in the back of the car and he drove off. A few minutes later, when he glanced in the rear view mirror, she was gone. Shaken he went straight to the police, who, when he gave details, reacted oddly, quizzing him endlessly. It turns out he was the fourth driver to report exactly the same story involving te same woman and the same place, over a period of a year. More horrifying still, the site they all reported picking her up was the exact spot of a fatal crash a year ago, when a young woman passenger was thrown clear of the wreck and found dead some distance along the hard shoulder. She matched the description of the phantom hiker.

“Austin Healey’s diary”, The Scotsman, 29 November 1997,

Vanishing Hitchhiker Update

July 24, 2011 / kevinhobbs

Teresa Cannon | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 5, 1996

Teresa Cannon has sent us a photocopy of a three page comic strip called “The strange story: The one who got away”, which appeared in Tammy Girls Annual 1982, published by PIC Magazines Ltd.

A truck has a puncture on a bleak moor. AS the driver and hs daughter are repairing it, a prison warder approaches with an escaped convict in his custody. Their dress is old-fashioned and the warder demands they drive to Fleetwood, a prison that had been pulled down several years before.

The passengers’ destination turns out not to be the prison but a fancy dress party being hosted by the chief constable. When the truck driver’s daughter tells the chief constable that she had thought the two men were ghosts, he replies:

“Ghosts, eh? Now that’s strange. Well about fifty years ago – almost to the day, in fact – a prisoner escaped from Fleetwood. He was the only one who was never recaught… A year after he escaped someone else admitted committing the crime our escapee was put inside for. If he’d really got away, he’d have shown up for his pardon, but he never did, so I reckon he lost his life trying to cross the moors.”

He goes on to say that he started by hitching a lift in a truck, but was seen by a young girl and ra away when the truck was stopped.

“Crikey” says the driver’s daughter. She remembers that she saw a second person in convict uniform get in the back of the truck. Looking out of the window, she sees the second “convict” get out of the back of the truck. When she mentions this friend to the other two passengers, they deny all knowledge of him. Only the two of them had set out for the party.

“B-but who did I see then?”

The girl’s question is answered in the final frame of the strip by the narrator, a man in evening dress holding a glass of wine. Addressing the reader, he says:

“Perhaps it was simply someone gatecrashing the party. But I don’t think so – and neither do you, do you?”