THE PROVERBIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANINGS OF “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?”

Main Article Content

Simon J. Bronner

Аннотация

At the end of the twentieth-century and early twenty-first century, “Who’s Your Daddy?” spontaneously chanted by large crowds at sporting events in the United States drew national press attention. Journalists usually reported the ritualized chanting of the question being of recent origin, but differed over whether it was meant to be offensive or endearing. In this essay, I use linguistic, paremiological, historical, folkloristic, and ethnographic research to show that the phrase could be considered a “proverbial interrogative” indicating social dominance associated with patriarchy and probably dates to the American frontier experience in the mid-nineteenth century. Through the twentieth century, it became associated with African-American street culture and the “beat scene,” often with sexual connotations. In its latest iteration, I argue with reference to “frame theory” that the frame of sports allowed for psycho-logical projection in this and other folk sayings of anxieties about declining power of men in a feminizing American society.

Article Details

Как цитировать
Bronner, S. J. . «THE PROVERBIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANINGS OF “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?”». Proverbium, т. 31, август 2014 г., сс. 109-132, https://naklada.ffos.hr/casopisi/index.php/proverbium/article/view/694.

Библиографические ссылки

Abrahams, Roger D. 1985. Everyday Life: A Poetics of Vernacular Practices. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Aldan, Drake. 2003. “Who’s Your Daddy.” Urban Dictionary. Post, March 25.

Alexander, Brian. 2005. “Hey Baby, Who’s Your Daddy? Why It’s a Turn-On to be Referred to as a Father Figure.” NBCnews.com: Sexploration July 21. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8644413/ns/health-sexual_health/t/heybaby-whos-your-daddy/#.Ue6_Wqwud2o.

Baker, Ronald L. 1984. Hoosier Folk Legends. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Baker, Ronald. From Needmore to Prosperity: Hoosier Place Names in Folklore and History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Barry, Dave. 2003. “Hoosier Daddy? Depends On Your Definition.” Victoria Advocate, January 12, p. 2D.

Bartlett, John Russell. 1877. Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. 4th ed. Boston, Little Brown.

Bateson, Gregory. 2000 [1972]. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bocock, Robert. 1979.”The Symbolism of the Father—A Freudian Sociological Analysis.” British Journal of Sociology 30: 206-17.

Boyer, Richard O. 1948. “Bop.” New Yorker, July 3, pp. 28-37.

Bronner, Simon J., ed. 2007. The Meaning of Folklore: The Analytical Essays of Alan Dundes. Logan: Utah State University Press.

Bronner, Simon J. 2010. “Framing Folklore: An Introduction.” Western Folklore 69: 275-98.

Calt, Stephen. 2009. Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Cassidy, Frederic G., Chief Ed., 1991. Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume II: D-H. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Causey, James. 2012. “It was Actually ‘Hoosier Daddy.’” JSOnline (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), March 20. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/143476 696.html.

Cross, Gary. 2010. Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity. New York: Columbia University Press.

Dalzell, Tom, ed. 2009. The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional Slang. New York: Routledge.

Dalzell, Tom, and Terry Victor, eds. 2006. The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: J-Z, Volume 2. New York: Routledge.

Doyle, Charles Clay. 1975. “Sarcastic Interrogative Affirmatives and Negatives.” Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore 1: 33-34.

Doyle, Charles Clay. 2008. “Is the Pope Still Catholic: Historical Observations on Sarcastic Interrogatives.” Western Folklore 67: 5-33.

Doyle, Charles Clay; Wolfgang Mieder; Fred Shapiro, compilers. 2012. The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Dundes, Alan. 1980. Interpreting Folklore. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Dundes, Alan. 1997. From Game to War and Other Pyschoanalytic Essays on Folklore. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Edgar. 2003. “Who’s your daddy.” Urban Dictionary, February 17. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=who%27s%20your%20daddy everyoneshouldhaveadumbass2pay. 2010. “Who’s Your Daddy?” Urban Dictionary. Post. October 30. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php? term=who%27s%20your%20daddy%3F.

Farhi, Paul. 2005. “Conception of a Question: Who’s Your Daddy?” Washington Post, January 4, C1.

Gano, Rick. 1999. “Chant Raises Ire of ‘Hoosier Daddy.’” Daily News (Bowling Green, Kentucky), February 15, p. 5B.

Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Graf, Jeffrey. 2013. “The Word Hoosier.” Indiana University Libraries. website. http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/internet/extra/hoosier.html.

Green, Jonathon. 2010. Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Volume 1, A-E. London: Chambers.

Haas, Heather A. 2013. “If It Walks Like a Proverb and Talks Like a Question: Proverbial and Other Formulaic Interrogatives.” Proverbium 30: 19-50.

Lighter, J.E., ed. 1994. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 1, A-G. New York: Random House.

Lynskey, Dorian. 2008. “Album of the Living Dead.” The Guardian, February 21. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/feb/22/popandrock1.

McCreary, Don R., ed. 2001. Dawgspeak! The Slanguage Dictionary of the University of Georgia. Athens: Department of English, University of Georgia.

McNutt, Alexander G. 1994 [1845]. “Chunkey’s Fight with the Panthers.” In Humor of the Old Southwest, 3rd ed., ed. Hennig Cohen and William Dillingham, 86-92. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Mechling, Jay. 1983. “Mind, Messages, and Madness: Gregory Bateson Makes a Paradigm for American Culture Studies.” In Prospects 8: An Annual Review of American Cultural Studies, ed. Jack Salzman, 11-30. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mieder, Wolfgang. 2004. Proverbs: A Handbook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Mieder, Wolfgang. 2006. “’The Proof of the Proverb is in the Probing’: Alan Dundes as Pioneering Paremiologist.” Western Folklore 65: 217-62.

Mieder, Wolfgang. 2012. “’Think Outside the Box’: Origin, Nature, and Meaning of Modern Anglo-American Proverbs.” Proverbium 29: 137-96.

Monitor. 2003. “Who’s your daddy.” Urban Dictionary, November 28. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=who%27s%20your%20daddy mrrayshirley. “Who’s Your Daddy? Song.” 2013. Fan Chants. Post.

http://fanchants.us/football-songs/kansas-city-chants/whos-your-daddy/ Oliver, Paul. 1990. Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues. 2nd rev. ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Partridge, Eric. 1977. A Dictionary of Catch Phrases: British and American, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day. New York: Stein and Day.

Rampell, Catherine. 2013. “Moms Increasingly Toil as Family Breadwinners.” Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA), May 30, p. A12.

Rasheed, Sarah. 2013. “Son of Westboro Baptist church Leader David Phelps Attacked by 500lbs Billy the Fridge on Live Television.” American LiveWire Website, March 28. http://americanlivewire.com/david-phelpsattacked-by-500lbs-man/

Rosen, Mike. 2013. “Who’s Your Daddy? Not Obama.” Denverpost.com. February 14. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_22583886/whos-yourdaddy-not-obama

Skenazy, Lenore. 2013. “On Father’s Day, Whither the Jewish Dad?: Stereotypes About Moms-of-the-Tribe Abound, But Their Husbands Are on the Sidelines of Pop Culture.” Forward, June 14, p. 19.

“Smurfs T-Shirts!” 2013. 80sTees.com. http://www.80stees.com/pages/tshirts/80s-cartoon/smurfs-t-shirts.asp.

Spears, Richard A. 2000. NTC’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. 3rd ed. Chicago: NTC Publishing.

Tkieron. 2006. “Who’s your daddy?” Urban Dictionary, Post. July 24. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=who%27s%20your%20daddy%3F.

“Uncle Sam and his “B’Hoys.’” 1851. United States Magazine and Democratic Review 28 (April): 299-304.

Verducci, Tom. 2004. “Head Games: Frustrated Martinez Succumbs to Yankees’ Domination after Latest Loss.” SI.com, September 28.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/tom_verducci/09/28/pedro.ya nkees/

Wang, Wendy; Kim Parker; Paul Taylor. 2013. “Breadwinner Moms: Mothers are the Sole or Primary Provider in Four-in-Ten Households with Children; Public Conflicted about the Growing Trend.” Pew Research Social & Demographic Trends, May 29. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/ 05/29/breadwinner-moms/

Weathersby, Carl. 2000. Come to Papa. CD. Philadelphia: Evidence Records. “Who’s Your Daddy?” 2007. Wordreference.com. Thread. June 16. http://fo rum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=353555

“Who’s Your Daddy Energy Drink.” 2013. Bevnet. http://www.bevnet.com/reviews/whos_your_daddy.

“Who’s Your Daddy Week: Arizona Sports Reminisces.” 2013. Arizona Sports. June 13. http://arizonasports.com/118/1639602/Whos-Your-Daddy-WeekArizona-Sports-reminisces.

Wild, David. 2010. “’Who’s Your Daddy!’: A Playlist for Today’s Rock & Roll Fathers.” Huffington Post, September 20. http://www.huffingtonpost. com/david-wild/whos-your-daddy-a-playlis_b_731047.html.