Going Bananas: Top 10 facts about bananas
LAST week, Theresa May was warned that the British public would “go bananas” if we paid the EU a huge amount to leave them. So here are a few banana facts.
1. The word “banana” came to us from Spanish or Portuguese and was first seen in English in 1597.
2. The origin of the phrase “go bananas” is not clear.
It dates from the 1950s and may stem from the older phrase “go ape” for going wild or crazy.
3. “Bananaland” has been a slang term for Queensland, Australia since 1898.
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4. The use of “banana peel” for a hazard that may cause failure or humiliation dates back to the late 19th century.
5. The scientific name for a banana is “musa sapientum” which means “fruit of the wise man”.
6. India tops the league of banana production, followed by China, the Philippines and Brazil.
7. Bananas have been produced in greenhouses in Iceland since 1941 but only in very small numbers.
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8. The song Yes! We Have No Bananas by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn, topped the US charts for five weeks in 1923.
9. The first president of Zimbabwe, from 1980-87, was Canaan Banana.
10. In 2016, China’s Culture Ministry was reported to have banned women from “seductively eating bananas” online.
