4 ms·

An Elegant Sufficiency, or the Curious Case of a Victorian Meme (2018)

31 points by dcminter 5y ago

dcminter 5y ago
I came across this article when googling to see if a variant upon it from my own family was a quotation!
allturtles 5y ago
> How did this concept proliferate and propagate without the internet, or at least written records? I'm perplexed by the author's perplexity. Isn't it obvious that short sayings like this (and other similar things, e.g. children's playground rhymes) propagate orally?
- moshmosh 5y ago
  Can confirm that my kids often come home having learned some trick, craft, joke, or rhyme from the other kids, that I also learned from other kids in school. One supposes adults may have a role in keeping these alive, but the larger effect seems to just be older kids passing down the knowledge to younger grades (their younger siblings, maybe) who spread the memes among themselves, generation after generation.
- jfengel 5y ago
  I don't think it's bafflement, exactly, but an interest in knowing more. There are linguists who study that, including playground rhymes. It's certain that they propagate orally, but it's an open question of why some things propagate and others don't. Just what is it that took one phrase from that poem and turned into into an increasingly elaborate set of semi-codified structures? The oral transmission puts limits on how fast and under what circumstances it can spread: it requires direct person-to-person contact rather than broadcast. It's the tip of a ton of research that they only alluded to, and would be curious to know more.
  - xtiansimon 5y ago
    I agree, "why some things propagate and others don't" is a very interesting question. I enjoy contemplating on the variety of propagating things inductively--jokes, poetic phrases, turn of phrase, but also skills, techniques, basic knowledge--just say the phrase Org Mode sets up the cult of the organized for preaching the gospel of Emacs. haha. Though, my curiosity in meme propagation is preempted by the curious rejection of memetics as explanation for social or psychological phenomena outside of its adherents.
- greatgoat420 5y ago
  Right like '23-skidoo' which I remember from an ancedote from some survivors of the titanic (https://www.titanicinquiry.org/BOTInq/BOTInq06Joughin03.php https://www.titanicinquiry.org/BOTInq/BOTInq06Joughin03.php) > 6344. You are quite right; it is No. 23 door? - We used to call it the skidoo door, on account of the number. That is how I remember the number. 6345. (The Commissioner.) I do not understand that? - It is an American joke. 6346. Will you explain it? - I could not explain it, my Lord.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
> But the universe must have decided that this wasn’t good enough, and presented me with the phrase the very next day "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon". You'll see this name again soon.
- scubbo 5y ago
  Indeed, I introduced someone to the concept for (for them) the first time yesterday!
pufinho 5y ago
This term kind of reminds me of an "joke" that's usually transmitted orally in my country. I can only assume that the origin of the meme may have something in common. A translation of the joke would be like: After lunch, the farmer boy tells his mom: - My belly is stuffed! His mom replies: - That's so impolite! This Friday when you have dinner on the city with your rich uncle, use elegant words like "I'm satisfied". - Ok, mom. Friday, after dinner, the boy says: - My satisfied is stuffed!
- dcminter 5y ago
  Could well be - my family's variant was: "I have had an elegant sufficiency and if I have any more I'll bust!" which is very much in the same vein!
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  A reasonably famous joke in Punjab goes as follows A rich nobleman is embarrassed at getting food stuck in his beard during a party and his servant motions him over by the bathroom door in order to comb it out. While he is with him he instructs the servant that next time this happens he should come to the table and tell him “Sir, the nightingale is perched on the tree” Well the next time, the servant walks in, sees the food in the beard and gets flustered because he can’t remember his line, so he blurts out “Sir, the shitty thing happened!” (The word for shit and bathroom is the same in very vulgar, rustic Punjabi, cf. shitter)
gregsq 5y ago
I’m curious about this and will ask my mother who picked it up from hers, and she from hers and so on. I’ve even used it myself as a kind of victorian throwback pleasantry. It’s a meme rather than a mimic I’m sure. Just being polite when served by those close, together with a whole lot of other cultural context. A descendant on her side had a fruit and veges shop in old Brighton when the royal pavillion attracted aristocrats and so on. Later in deptford, bombed during WWII and surrounded by relative poverty. Stiff upper lip and lower class manners mixed with stoicism. I’d look in the east end and Kent for English context.
anyfoo 5y ago
Anecdotical of course, but I remember "memes" existing in localized/regional form long before the Internet was publicly available. If we had to have a name for it, we said it was an "insider joke"[1]. This was usually small silly stuff like words or phrases that were repeated, sometimes situational and back-and-forth, or callbacks to earlier events that made a mark somehow. As a small and silly example, I remember that around the part of the city where I grew up, for a while we had this thing where when someone asked why we were going to do something (like going to some other neighborhood), instead of the real reason (like going to get ice cream) we would all answer with fake exasperation "it's about the principle!!"[2]. It's just stupid, fun bonding stuff teenagers do, most of which is probably forgotten when you grew up and absurdist humor becomes a bit less interesting. I remember that the word "meme" actually was invented to, so it seemed to me, describe exactly this phenomenon, and only years later the Internet meme superseded that more general meaning to something more specific. [1] Although this was Germany in the 90s, we literally used the English words "insider joke". There's a lot of expressions synthesized using English words in common usage in Germany. [2] This one actually in German.
analyte123 5y ago
This reminds me of the Civil War meme "Mister, here's your mule" [1]. With the meme supply limited by word-of-mouth, I can only imagine how riotously funny both of these must have been to those at the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_your_mule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_your_mule
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
darkstarsys 5y ago
Interesting. In my family it was always "I've had an _ample_ sufficiency."
zumu 5y ago
This is a meme in my family as well. I always took it as a mockery of affectatious formal speech. I never thought of it as a jab at the nouveau riche let alone of the Victorian era, but it seems plausible.
cecilpl2 5y ago
My family uses "I'm sufficiently suffonsified!", but I've never heard anyone else use it. Super curious where it came from.

31 points by dcminter 5y ago

I came across this article when googling to see if a variant upon it from my own family was a quotation!

> How did this concept proliferate and propagate without the internet, or at least written records? I'm perplexed by the author's perplexity. Isn't it obvious that short sayings like this (and other similar things, e.g. children's playground rhymes) propagate orally?

moshmosh 5y ago
Can confirm that my kids often come home having learned some trick, craft, joke, or rhyme from the other kids, that I also learned from other kids in school. One supposes adults may have a role in keeping these alive, but the larger effect seems to just be older kids passing down the knowledge to younger grades (their younger siblings, maybe) who spread the memes among themselves, generation after generation.
jfengel 5y ago
I don't think it's bafflement, exactly, but an interest in knowing more. There are linguists who study that, including playground rhymes. It's certain that they propagate orally, but it's an open question of why some things propagate and others don't. Just what is it that took one phrase from that poem and turned into into an increasingly elaborate set of semi-codified structures? The oral transmission puts limits on how fast and under what circumstances it can spread: it requires direct person-to-person contact rather than broadcast. It's the tip of a ton of research that they only alluded to, and would be curious to know more.
- xtiansimon 5y ago
  I agree, "why some things propagate and others don't" is a very interesting question. I enjoy contemplating on the variety of propagating things inductively--jokes, poetic phrases, turn of phrase, but also skills, techniques, basic knowledge--just say the phrase Org Mode sets up the cult of the organized for preaching the gospel of Emacs. haha. Though, my curiosity in meme propagation is preempted by the curious rejection of memetics as explanation for social or psychological phenomena outside of its adherents.
greatgoat420 5y ago
Right like '23-skidoo' which I remember from an ancedote from some survivors of the titanic (https://www.titanicinquiry.org/BOTInq/BOTInq06Joughin03.php https://www.titanicinquiry.org/BOTInq/BOTInq06Joughin03.php) > 6344. You are quite right; it is No. 23 door? - We used to call it the skidoo door, on account of the number. That is how I remember the number. 6345. (The Commissioner.) I do not understand that? - It is an American joke. 6346. Will you explain it? - I could not explain it, my Lord.

hyperpallium2 5y ago

> But the universe must have decided that this wasn’t good enough, and presented me with the phrase the very next day "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon". You'll see this name again soon.

scubbo 5y ago
Indeed, I introduced someone to the concept for (for them) the first time yesterday!

pufinho 5y ago

This term kind of reminds me of an "joke" that's usually transmitted orally in my country. I can only assume that the origin of the meme may have something in common. A translation of the joke would be like: After lunch, the farmer boy tells his mom: - My belly is stuffed! His mom replies: - That's so impolite! This Friday when you have dinner on the city with your rich uncle, use elegant words like "I'm satisfied". - Ok, mom. Friday, after dinner, the boy says: - My satisfied is stuffed!

dcminter 5y ago
Could well be - my family's variant was: "I have had an elegant sufficiency and if I have any more I'll bust!" which is very much in the same vein!
selimthegrim 5y ago
A reasonably famous joke in Punjab goes as follows A rich nobleman is embarrassed at getting food stuck in his beard during a party and his servant motions him over by the bathroom door in order to comb it out. While he is with him he instructs the servant that next time this happens he should come to the table and tell him “Sir, the nightingale is perched on the tree” Well the next time, the servant walks in, sees the food in the beard and gets flustered because he can’t remember his line, so he blurts out “Sir, the shitty thing happened!” (The word for shit and bathroom is the same in very vulgar, rustic Punjabi, cf. shitter)

gregsq 5y ago

I’m curious about this and will ask my mother who picked it up from hers, and she from hers and so on. I’ve even used it myself as a kind of victorian throwback pleasantry. It’s a meme rather than a mimic I’m sure. Just being polite when served by those close, together with a whole lot of other cultural context. A descendant on her side had a fruit and veges shop in old Brighton when the royal pavillion attracted aristocrats and so on. Later in deptford, bombed during WWII and surrounded by relative poverty. Stiff upper lip and lower class manners mixed with stoicism. I’d look in the east end and Kent for English context.

anyfoo 5y ago

Anecdotical of course, but I remember "memes" existing in localized/regional form long before the Internet was publicly available. If we had to have a name for it, we said it was an "insider joke"[1]. This was usually small silly stuff like words or phrases that were repeated, sometimes situational and back-and-forth, or callbacks to earlier events that made a mark somehow. As a small and silly example, I remember that around the part of the city where I grew up, for a while we had this thing where when someone asked why we were going to do something (like going to some other neighborhood), instead of the real reason (like going to get ice cream) we would all answer with fake exasperation "it's about the principle!!"[2]. It's just stupid, fun bonding stuff teenagers do, most of which is probably forgotten when you grew up and absurdist humor becomes a bit less interesting. I remember that the word "meme" actually was invented to, so it seemed to me, describe exactly this phenomenon, and only years later the Internet meme superseded that more general meaning to something more specific. [1] Although this was Germany in the 90s, we literally used the English words "insider joke". There's a lot of expressions synthesized using English words in common usage in Germany. [2] This one actually in German.

analyte123 5y ago

This reminds me of the Civil War meme "Mister, here's your mule" [1]. With the meme supply limited by word-of-mouth, I can only imagine how riotously funny both of these must have been to those at the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_your_mule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_your_mule

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

darkstarsys 5y ago

Interesting. In my family it was always "I've had an _ample_ sufficiency."

zumu 5y ago

This is a meme in my family as well. I always took it as a mockery of affectatious formal speech. I never thought of it as a jab at the nouveau riche let alone of the Victorian era, but it seems plausible.

cecilpl2 5y ago

My family uses "I'm sufficiently suffonsified!", but I've never heard anyone else use it. Super curious where it came from.