Indy Folklore post 2

Place Legends, by Ronald L Baker

Summary:

This was a collection of short stories in regards  to a place called Blue Hole in Praireton, IN; Halfmoon Springs (which may also be Blue Hole?) and speculations on where the state nickname, 'Hoosier', originated.

Response:

I've never even heard of Blue Hole, which is kind of disappointing as there seems to be about 6 stories or so about the place. Now the name 'hoosier' I've heard a few about. I've heard the 'who's your daddy' one and the 'who's there' one. I hadn't heard the ones that talked about different cultures naming us, which makes me wonder....

Questions:

1. Have I not heard of other cultures naming us because we'd prefer to think we "named ourselves?"
2. If the Blue Hole is so dangerous, why do we keep going there?

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Folk Sayings from Indiana by PG Brewster.

Summary:

A collection of sayings found in Indy's southside around 1938.

Response:

As I read through these, I'd tick them off in my head: heard that one, never heard that one, heard something similar and so on. It was kind of fun to see which ones had changed, fallen out of use or were exactly the same.

Questions:
1. How regional is this?
2. How much did the times (1930s-1940s) influence these sayings?
3. How common is modernization of traditional sayings?

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More Indiana Sayings by PG Brewster.

Summary:

A collection of saying from Indiana, from the same time and setting as the previous article. In this article, similarities to other state's sayings were also noted and in the case of Missouri, marked.

Response:

Again, I did a lot of nodding and 'hum'ing and 'hah'ing over this. It was also fun to note which ones were also used in Missouri. 

Questions:

1. Why does there seem to be 'universal' sayings? Such as 'raining cats and dogs'?
2. Most of these sayings make no sense in a practical setting, how did they come about?

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Notes on Indiana Speech by VE Gibbens

Summary:

Gibbens talked about several 'normal' words and a few not so normal words, on how hoosiers use them in a completely different context. For example, the words 'any more' used as an affirmative word ("I'm done with this any more") in stead of "Do you have any more" or something similar. 

Response:

Out of all these sayings, I only recognized maybe three.  I did like how he talked about the possible origins or different versions of the sayings, but I was kind of disappointed that I didn't recognize most of them. There were several however, that were also noted in the other two articles.

Questions:
1. How can one speculate the origin of these sayings?
2. How can sayings/ways of speech seem to 'skip states'. That is, something similar is said in Nebraska and Indiana, but not between?