Childhood Fortune-Telling

[tamyu]

Recently a few of my diaries from elementary school came out of the woodwork and family sent them to me... Randomly flipping through them I have to say that between 1st and 3rd grade I wrote way too much pointless stuff - but there was a repeating theme that almost sent a chill up my spine.

I`m sure most remember that game kids play where you take an apple and twist the stem off while reciting the alphabet. The letter when the stem comes off is the first letter of the first or last name of your future spouse. Well, it was a very popular little bit of fortune telling with the girls in the early half of elementary school. And of course, having nothing more entertaining in life to write about, I noted probably every single time we did it and the results.

Almost every time, I would get Y. If not Y, X or Z. Reciting forward or backward, declaring that it was first or last initial, it seems I would always twist off at Y.
This brought back a lot of memories, as of course there were no cute boys around whose names started with Y. I don`t even think any of us were able to come up with a "normal" name that started with Y - I can vaguely recall being made fun of as I must have been destined to marry a Yorick who everyone envisioned as something from a horror movie. And the only boy with a last name beginning with Y was an awful bully.

Somewhere along the line I decided to discount all of it as it HAD to be baseless superstition - and wrote a little entry about how I didn`t believe any of it.

The thing that gave me an odd chill is this - my husband`s first and last name BOTH begin with Y. Coincidence, I`m sure, but a very strange one.

 

[PeniG]

My apple stem (and we did this every time we ate an apple) almost always twisted off at G. Not always, but often enough that I remembered it. The consensus was that it was a factor of how hard I twisted, and that there wasn't much variation in the force I exerted. But here I am married to a man surnamed Griffin.

It would be tidy if the second most common letters were M (for his given name) or D (for the name he goes by), but I don't remember what they were.

Girls who always got different initials, obviously, were going to marry multiple times; yet I don't recall that we ever drew the conclusion. Despite the divorces and remarriages going on all around us, we all assumed it would be one husband per person.

 

[Iris]

We used to do the same thing skipping. Mine always came up R and my husband's name and sirname both began with it.

 

[tamyu]

I`m fairly sure we did it whenever we ate an apple - but there was a bit of a neighborhood event where all the girls would gather and recite the alphabet together and see what letter we all got...

I think that I find it so interesting because, well, Y isn`t a common first initial. For the more common initials, I`d be more likely to simply laugh a bit at the coincidence... But not a whole lot of Ys out there.

 

[linesmachine]

I think it's fascinating that such a "game" is played so widely. In my area we used to do the twisting bit for the Surname, but to get the given name/christian name you would use the (now removed) stalk and grip it between thumb and first finger and tap it against the apples skin, recitating the alphabet as you went. The letter recited as you broke the skin was the first letter of the given name. Just wanted to ask if it this was part of the process for you guys as well...?

 

[Little_grey_lady]

I think it's fascinating that such a "game" is played so widely. In my area we used to do the twisting bit for the Surname, but to get the given name/christian name you would use the (now removed) stalk and grip it between thumb and first finger and tap it against the apples skin, recitating the alphabet as you went. The letter recited as you broke the skin was the first letter of the given name. Just wanted to ask if it this was part of the process for you guys as well...?

Yes, that's how we did it - only the twisting of the stalk was the first letter of the first name and the breaking of the skin was the surname.

I used to do it occasionally and now I really wish I had written it down or could remember if there was any letter which came up more than often. I do remember occasionally "aiding" the breaking off when it came to the letter of a boy I liked.

 

[tamyu]

I think it's fascinating that such a "game" is played so widely. In my area we used to do the twisting bit for the Surname, but to get the given name/christian name you would use the (now removed) stalk and grip it between thumb and first finger and tap it against the apples skin, recitating the alphabet as you went. The letter recited as you broke the skin was the first letter of the given name. Just wanted to ask if it this was part of the process for you guys as well...?

The way we did it was a little bit differently. The twisting bit could be either first or last name - but it would be set ahead. "First initial is... (Last initial is...) A B C..." until it twisted off.
And then, if the result wasn`t what we wanted, we`d go on and poke the stem into the bottom of the apple. The letter it stuck on was the other initial. But that bit always seemed like it was too easy to cheat on - push it hardest on the letter you wanted. If the letter was the one you wanted, then why take the risk of nullifying it by getting an initial different from the boy you liked? So in that case we`d put the stem into a pocket or bag - throwing it away was "throwing away your chance".

Of course I`m sure we all cheated from time to time, but there was no thrill in getting the "right" letter if you cheated as it didn`t really count.

 

[linesmachine]

lol, to be honest the whole process was open to corruption. There was a girl I liked whose surname started with K so I would do little twists up until J and then a massive 720 degree twist to ensure I landed on K!

 

[tamyu]

lol, to be honest the whole process was open to corruption. There was a girl I liked whose surname started with K so I would do little twists up until J and then a massive 720 degree twist to ensure I landed on K!

Yes, but you always KNEW you were cheating that way.
With friends the "cheated" letter may be something to show off, but deep down inside you knew you cheated - right? And the letters that came up when cheating didn`t REALLY count.

The way we did it with friends may cheating on the stem twist a little bit harder as we`d be in a circle and everyone was watching. It`s easy to see when someone does a huge twist, but not so easy when you`re pushing the stem. If you keep turning the apple/stem at a pretty even rate it isn`t so easy to secretly pull it off at the right place. But no one can see how hard you push with the stem!

 

[His Extremely DeLux Self]

Nobody did the apple thing where I was a kid, as far as I know anyway; but on the larger subject of childhood fortune telling, kids at my grade school used to make "cootie catchers" with "fortunes" written on the innermost flap of paper (https://preview.tinyurl.com/ycluwvap ). I don't think any of us kids took it that serious (a lot of the so-called fortunes were more like childish attempts at insult humor), but there was such a fad for them when I was in the 4th grade that they were declared to be contraband, and at least one teacher took the opportunity to lecture her class about how fortune telling was foolish, risky and "against the Bible".