Title: The Engineer and the Frog Princess (Eric Hansen)

General Information about Item:

• Verbal lore, joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Eric Hansen
• Date Collected: 5-30-19

Informant Data:

• Eric Hansen is a engineering professor at Dartmouth College. He teaches a number of classes at Dartmouth, including ENGS 23, Distributed Systems and Fields and ENGS 31, Digital Electronics. He grew up in California, and many members of his family and community were Scandinavian. His family has a tradition of storytelling, influenced by traditional tales such as the Icelandic Sagas.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: The joke plays on traditional engineering stereotypes, such as lack of interest or skill in romantic relationships. It also reflects the fact the engineering has traditionally been male dominated. The informant’s family has a tradition of telling stories, which has influenced the narrative form of the informant’s version of this joke. This joke is also influenced by the fairy tale “The Frog Prince” collected by the Brothers Grimm. There are also other versions of the story that have the genders reversed.
• Social Context: This joke was recorded during an in-person interview with the informant. The informant was not sure where he had first heard this joke, but he thinks it was after he was a student. He may have told the joke in a classroom setting, but the informant considered the joke to be part of his family folklore.

Item:

Interview Recording:

Transcript of joke:

• (2:34) “There was a guy walking through the woods one day, enjoying…, you know, going somewhere, and, um, he was addressed by a frog by the side of the road, and the frog said ‘hey!, hey!’, and he looks at the frog and the frog says, ‘hey I want to talk to you’, and the guy says, ‘oh, what about?’, and the frog says, ‘I am actually a beautiful princess and a wicked sorcerer put a spell on me and turned me into a frog, but if you kiss me I will turn back into a human and we will live happily ever after,’ and the guy says, ‘oh,’ and he picks up the frog and puts it in his pocket and keeps walking on his way. And a little while later he hears this voice, ‘oeer, oeer’ coming out of his pocket. He pulls the frog out and the frog repeats the speech, and, um, that ‘I’m a beautiful princess and I have been transformed into a frog by a wicked sorcerer and if you only kiss me I will turn back into a princess and we will live happily ever after’, and the guy smiles and puts the frog back into his pocket, and a few more hundred yards down the road, um, the frog is very insistent, kind of jumping around in his pocket trying to get his attention, and he takes the frog out and says ‘yeah, what?’ and the frog says, ‘no, you don’t understand, I really am a princess and I really was turned into a frog by an evil sorcerer and if you only kiss me I will turn into…, back into a princess and we’ll live happily ever after’ and the guy finally looks at the frog and says, ‘look, I’m an engineer, I haven’t got time for a relationship, but I think a talking frog is pretty cool.'”

Informant’s Comments:

• The informant was concerned that this joke could be viewed as sexist, and stated that the genders could easily be swapped, but he told it in the way he originally heard it. He credits the narrative style of the joke to his family’s tradition of storytelling.

Collector’s Comments:

• This is very similar to the joke collected from Sal LaRussa, except it is longer and takes a narrative form. The interaction with the frog is trebled, as is common in folk tales. The wording of the punchline is nearly identical.

Collector’s Name: Ben Wolsieffer

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Folklore
• Joke
• Stereotype

Title: The Engineer and the Frog Princess (Sal LaRussa)

General Information about Item:

• Verbal folklore, joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Sal LaRussa
• Date Collected: 5-19-19

Informant Data:

• Sal LaRussa is currently a field applications engineer at Texas Instruments in Massachusetts. He went to college at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York. His first job was at Taylor Instruments, an engineering company in Rochester that was well known for making measuring instruments, including thermometers.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Most of the engineering jokes the informant can remember were heard during his time at RIT or Taylor Instruments. His example was used to make fun of people who exemplified common engineering stereotypes, such as social ineptitude. This joke is also influenced by the fairy tale “The Frog Prince,” collected by the Brothers Grimm. There are also other versions of the story that have the genders reversed.
• Social Context: This joke was recalled after the the informant was asked prior to the interview to think of engineering jokes. The interview took place over the phone. The joke was likely told and originally heard during the informant’s time in college. It may have been used to comment on the behavior and personality of other engineering students.

Item:

Interview Recording:

Transcript:

• (2:14) “There was the one about, you know, a guy finding a frog on the street and it was a princess and all you had to do was kiss the frog and there would be a princess and he never…, um, he never kissed the frog and the frog finally got upset with him and said ‘why don’t you ever kiss me, I’ll be a beautiful princess’ and he goes, ‘well I don’t really care about princesses, but a talking frog is really cool.'”

Informant’s Comments:

• This joke reminded him of one of his colleagues at Taylor Instruments, but he is not sure where he first heard it. He thought it might have been more likely heard and performed while he was in college rather than at work.

Collector’s Comments:

• This joke seems to be a common example of an engineering stereotype joke. A variant was also collected from Eric Hansen as part of this project. The informant asked me to redact the name of one of the people mentioned in the interview, as it portrayed him in a negative light. Besides this joke, the full recorded interview contains some discussion of engineering stereotypes and folklore.

Collector’s Name: Ben Wolsieffer