"In oral cultures a request for information is commonly interpreted interactively (Malinowski 1923, pp. 451, 470-81), as agonistic, and, instead of being really answered, is frequently parried. An illuminating story is told of a visitor in County Cork, Ireland, an especially oral region in a country which in every region preserves massive residual orality. The visitor saw a Corkman leaning against the post office. He went up to him, pounded with his hand on the post office wall next to the Corkman's shoulder, and asked, "Is this the post office?" The Corkman was not taken in. He looked at his questioner quietly and with great concern: "'Twouldn't be a postage stamp you were lookin' for, would it?" He treated the enquiry not as a request for information but as something the enquirer was doing to him. So he did something in turn to the enquirer to see what would happen. All natives of Cork, according to the mythology, treat all questions this way. Always answer a question by asking another. Never let down your oral guard."
Pic: Jimmy Cummin's oral guard. (c) Tom Raworth
