Going Bananas

[IBBen]

I just read through the "hit the ground running" post and a question posed to me by a close friend came to mind.

When and why did bananas become a metaphor for insanity?

My friend deduced that the banana is the oddest shaped fruit and therefore is different. Hmmmm.

Anyone?

I don't know if that's true, but it has a certain ap-peel.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[jamesglewisf]

blessedwolf - Be careful. That's a slippery slope.

[Cabbage]

Could it have something to do with the monkey-banana relationship? Everyone knows monkeys are crazy. Bananas are crazy by association.

[Zenster]

Not monkey, APE. As in going ape for bananas.

[GuanoLad]

The very word is the reason, I think. It sounds like a nonsense word in the vein of 'doolally' and 'wacky' etc, which aren't real words at all, but still refer to the effect of being 'nuts'.

[IBBen]

Let's quit monkeying around here, many words sound crazier than bananas. Zenster sounds closest in suggesting "going ape for bananas" but I swear that the phrase I have heard is "going bananas" Doesn't sound right Zen.

[bibliophage]

Banana oil is old slang for nonsense or foolishness.

A bananahead is a stupid person.

The Wordsworth Book of Euphemism says Off his/her nana or nanny (from 1894, used in Australia for insane, from Banana or "behaving like a nana," i.e., raving mad.)

A Bananalander is a person who lives in Queensland. It's obvious to me that only an insane person would want to live there. :D

[casdave]

I was told by a person who had served in India during WWII that going doollally was a term that was coined by troops stationed over there.

The full term was "To be tapped with the Dolali hammer" meaning to go slightly mad.

He claimed it was a referance to a large military camp where soldiers ended up with a mental institution there.

When I visited India myself I went to Bombay and was assured that there was a place of that name in the area(since India is huge I took that with a pinch of salt) and that it had been a British army depot.

This could all be total tosh so if you know more I'd appreciate the telling.

[IBBen]

And "going doollally" has to with bananas how?