American culture question
All cultures develop phrases, quotes, sayings or aphorisms that most members of that culture have generally accepted "definitions" of the meaning. Pick one that is unique to the American culture and provide it. Next, share the background from where it came, if you know it. Last, interpret this saying within American culture...what does it mean to other Americans?
Please feel free to ask quesitons to the Chinese culture postings as Comments.
Thanks!
4 Comments:
Phrase:
Bring a Hot Dish to the Pot Luck Dinner next week.
Background and Interpretation:
I come from Minnesota, a state in the Midwestern part of the U.S. Many of the people immigrated from Sweden and Norway and settled in rural areas and made their living as farmers of crops and animals.
I grew up in Lindstrom, Minnesota, the place where THE IMMIGRANTS movie was filmed (Liv Ulmaann starred in it) Lindstrom looks a lot like Sweden so it made a great movie set/scene and we had plenty of movie ‘extras’ who still speak Swedish.
Our area is known for its Church and Community Dinners. These events always present a large variety of home cooked foods.
We refer to those dinners as Pot Luck Dinners because everyone brings their favorite food – enough for their own family and some to share in a HOT DISH- fresh out of the oven. It is called Pot Luck because each POT contains someone else’s recipe for our favorite foods like hamburger and macaroni casserole or spaghetti casserole. Another word for the French word ‘CASSEROLE’ is ‘hot dish’. And the LUCK part is that you get LUCKY and have your favorite food for dinner because someone else may have prepared it for this meal.
Phrase:
The test was a "slam-dunk."
Background and Interpretation:
I was listening to National Public Radio this morning and they were interviewing an author of an American slang book. One of the phrases she mentioned was "slam-dunk" and I thought it would be a good one to share with you all since I hear it pretty often.
In American culture, a "slam-dunk" means a definite, successful outcome. For example, if someone says the test is a "slam-dunk", it means there is a 100% chance of performing well.
The phrase comes from the sport of basketball and refers to the action where a player jumps in the air, grabs onto the hoop, and "dunks" or pushes the ball through the hoop in one fluid motion.
My favorite aphorism is: "Life is short" and this is how I try to live my life.
I have always interpretted this to mean that we should enjoy each moment. Or to focus on the good in our world and enjoy life because it flies by much too quickly. In other words try not get bogged down in negative thoughts, words, activities or worry too much.
This exercise made me realize that I knew nothing about the origin of this phrase so I did a little digging and was interested to learn about its history. Here is what I found:
First, and I think most interesting, is that the real phrase was "Life is Short, Art is Long" ... that changed the way I look at that saying. It appears that perhaps it was originally intended to mean "great art will outlive us all. " How true!
Secondly the aphorsim is a quote from Hippocrates. Below is some information on him that I think you might also find interesting...
Hippocrates, Physician
Born: c. 460 BC
Birthplace: Island of Cos, Greece
Died: 377 B.C.
Best Known As: Author of the Hippocratic Oath
Hippocrates is perhaps history's most famous physician. By rejecting superstition in favor of scientific observation, by classifying diseases, and by creating a set of moral and professional standards for physicians, he earned the title of 'Father of Medicine.' He also gave the world the Hippocratic Oath, a code of ethics for physicians which is still taken by graduates at many modern medical schools.
Wow, Cindy! I'm impressed you did such work on your "assigment" :)
Many thanks to you, Rebecca and Jessica for sharing your quote!
Wuhan Tyler
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