folk memory

English

Noun

folk memory (usually uncountable, plural folk memories)

1. (set phrase) The collective lore, beliefs, and traditional stories which help to define a society, culture, or nation.
   • 1988 Aug. 21, Julia O'Faolain, "Bard of the Bar" (review of A Letter to Peachtree and Nine Other Stories by Benedict Kiely), New York Times (retrieved 8 June 2014):

     That leisured past . . . is insistently evoked in Mr. Kiely's new collection. A compendium of folk memory, it features great bursts of balladry and doggerel.

   • 1997 June 3, Ruth Dudley Edwards, "No need to apologise for the potato famine," The Independent (UK) (retrieved 8 June 2014):

     James Wilson would have been bewildered and horrified to learn that 150 years later Britain is credited in the Irish folk memory—and general liberal opinion—with callously allowing a million people to starve to death.

   • 2011 Oct. 18, Peter Beresford, "Harassing people on benefits degrades us all," The Guardian (UK) (retrieved 8 June 2014):

     Arguments about the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor . . . underpinned the popular fear and loathing of the workhouse that endure in folk memory.

References

• “folk memory”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.