Breanna NielsonFollow

Date Collected

11-2018

Place item was collected

Delta, Utah

Informant

Vance Lovell

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Vance is my dad. He is fifty-eight years old and lives in Delta, Utah. He grew up and has lived there for the majority of his life. He is the father of five children and has six grandchildren. He is kind and fun. He loves to play sports, be outdoors, and loves adventure. Vance loves to tease people, especially his wife, Marsha. Vance loves cars. He was raised fixing cars, because his father owned his own mechanical shop. Vance is an Electrical Supervisor at the Intermountain Power Service Corporation in Utah.

Context

We were sitting in my parents’ kitchen just before lunch. My mom, Marsha, was making lunch for us, while I, my dad, and my husband talked. My mom would pipe into the conversation here and there. Out of my family only my dad calls me Foobert Lou. It originated with my actual name Breanna. Since it is hard for little kids to pronounce Breanna, they say Brenanna instead. Since Brenanna is catchy my siblings started just calling me Nanna for short. My brother and dad then added little in front of it creating Little Nanna. They believe it is rather fitting for me since I am the youngest child and because I am 5 feet and 1 inch tall. The name Little Nanna was then plugged into the Children’s Song “Little Bunny Foo Foo”. The rest my dad, Vance, explains in the text below. I added a name chart to help one to more clearly see the changing order from my name Breanna all the way to Foobert Lou.

Text

Vance: “Well, first I was singing “Little Nanna Foo Foo”— [Marsha interrupts for a moment, then he continues.] “So then it was “Little Nanna Foo Foo hoppin’ through the forest” [He refers to the Children’s Song “Little Bunny Foo Foo”.] so we used to sing that and then it got shortened to Foo, and then Bert just went along with it. Foobert.”

Marsha: “And then added Lou.”

V: “Yeah, and then added Lou.”

Texture

I asked Vance if he would share with me how my nickname Foobert Lou came about so I could collect it to put into the Folklore Archives at USU. He agreed, but he seemed to feel a little uncomfortable explaining it because he knew that I already knew how it came about. He was playing a game of solitaire on his phone as he talked, so he was a little distracted. So, he gave a very simple explanation. I also don’t think he realized I wanted him to start with my actual name. He also seemed disinterested so I didn’t push him for more. As a result his body movements just consisted of his right pointer finger tapping the screen on his iPhone.

Course

Engl 2210

Instructor

Lynne S. McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G3: Folk Speech

EAD Number

6.8.2.82

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Additional Files

Scan_0001.jpg (165 kB)

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