Knocking on wood
Knocking on wood follows a hopeful or boastful remark, to keep it from being jinxed. Folklore students have recorded it from Wisconsin to Mexico, where two people who say the same thing at once race to knock first.
What it may mean
The knock most often follows good news said out loud: we haven't had a cold all winter, the car has never broken down, the baby sleeps through the night. A Wisconsin man in the USC folklore archive knocks whenever he catches himself boasting too early, and a San Franciscan does it whenever someone claims that nothing bad has ever happened to them. Behind both is an old unease about naming your good fortune where fate might overhear. Yet the knock does not cancel the sentence. It lets people say the hopeful thing and then cover it, which may be why it has lasted. Some knock once, some three times, some on their own heads. Whichever you do, it is worth noticing what you just admitted you are glad about.
Depending on how you saw it
No wood in sight
When there is no wood nearby, people improvise: a woman from Miami knocks three times on her own head, and others rap on a car dashboard or the nearest hard surface. The form bends while the habit stays. Which of your rituals has bent to fit new places?
Saying the same thing at the same moment
In a Mexican custom recorded in 2013, two people who say the same thing at once must both hurry to knock on wood, and whoever knocks last, the saying goes, will grow old unmarried. Speaking in unison is rare enough to feel like a sign. When did you last say exactly the same words as someone else?
Knocking down, not up
In a 2013 University of Chicago study, people who knocked down on a table, away from themselves, judged a jinxed bad outcome less likely than people who knocked upward, toward themselves. Pushing away seemed to push the worry away too. What do you do with your hands when a worry will not settle?
Why it happens in nature
No one knows for sure where the habit began. The British folklorist Steve Roud suspects it grew out of a 19th-century tag game, "tiggy tiggy touch wood," in which players were safe while touching wood, and he calls the tree-spirit theory nonsense; at some point North Americans began knocking instead. Researchers have also found that an avoidant gesture like knocking down eases the fear of having jinxed yourself.
What folk beliefs say
Wisconsin (United States)
A man raised in Madison, Wisconsin, learned from his older brother to knock on wood whenever he catches himself boasting about something too early, so as not to jinx it.
Source: Tyler Jutting (collector), Knock on Wood (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2022), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
California (United States)
A man from San Francisco, who picked it up from his parents, knocks on wood whenever someone says they have never had something bad happen to them, such as never having broken a bone.
Source: Theo Hallal (collector), Superstition: Knock on Wood (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2023), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
Mexico
When two people say the same thing at the same time, they must hurry to knock on wood; the one who knocks last, it is said, will grow old without marrying.
Source: Carmen Villasenor Santiago (collector), Knock on wood (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2013), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
Florida (United States)
A Miami-raised woman knocks on wood three times whenever a worrying thought comes to her, or on her own head if no wood is near; she learned it from her mother and older sister and says it gives her peace of mind.
Source: Sophia Rosenberg (collector), Knocking on Wood (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2026), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
To reflect on
Which hope of yours do you keep from saying aloud, just in case?