Kaylee DudleyFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-2017

Place item was collected

Logan Utah

Informant

Brooke D

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Brooke D is a 28-year-old woman who loves working with children. She holds the following degrees: Bachelor's of Science with a Psychology Major and a Pure Mathematics Minor and Masters of Occupational Therapy. Brooke has worked with people with disabilities since 2005 in a multitude of settings. She is passionate about making a difference in people's lives and feels strongly that her first focus should be on building rapport and getting to know the goals of the people with whom she works. Since 2015, she has worked as an Occupational Therapist (OT) in a public school in Illinois and provides home health therapy services for children ages 0-3. Prior to that, she worked for two years as a OT in a pediatric outpatient hospital setting. Brooke lives in Illinois with her dog and fiancé. She enjoys spending time outdoors. During the summer, most of her weekends are spent fishing and staying at a lake house in central Wisconsin. During the winter, she enjoys shooting on an archery league with her fiancé and curled up inside with a warm drink and a book. Brooke is close to her family and feels it is a priority to maintain good family relationships.

Context

I interviewed Brooke over the computer using a program called Zoom in order to record the interview. She was at her home in Illinois at the time and I was at home in Logan in my living room. I chose to talk to Brooke because of her involvement with the disability community. This because I am currently enrolled in a social justice course so when it came time to collect folklore I decided I would turn to the disability community for my content. The grandfather and family that Brooke is discussing is on her mother’s side of the family though she also mentions her father. This family is located in the American Fork and Lehi Utah areas. Brooke says that this folklore has traveled with her to Chicago even though her family is not there to participate in the use of the word. She now uses it while talking to her fiancé who was told this story and who understands the term when she uses it. Some members of the family use it more frequently than others, but they all understand its meaning.

Text

So dyslexia is very prominent in my family um we got I my grandpa has dyslexia my mom and dad both have dyslexia my little brother has dyslexia um cousins. I mean everybody in my I swear half my family has dyslexia um and so… but my grandpa to save his life cannot say “dyslexia”. Um he calls it “lysdexia”, or “lysdexic” he’s “lysdexic”. Um and so it’s kind of it’s it’s kinda funny because dyslexic people are teased all the time for reversing things or saying doing things backwards writing letters in reverse order um. And my grandpa can’t say “dyslexia” so it’s like the perfect example of what dyslexia is. Is lysdexic or lysdexia um. So we…all of our family teases and jokes like, “Ah!” or you know I’ll write something wrong or type a number in wrong be like “Ah! I’m just lysdexic.” Um it’s kind of our joke, our play on words um and it’s not meant to tease grandpa it’s just “Oh that’s what it is your lysdexic.”

Texture

Brooke describes the lightheartedness of the expression lysdexic in its use in a very cheerful way. It comes up in times of mistakes but isn’t critical rather an allusion to grandpa’s use of the word in the moment.

Course

Introduction to Folklore, ENGL 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne McNeil

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G3: Folk Speech

EAD Number

6.7.9.3.391

Download

Share

COinS