"Yes, we have no bananas" origin

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Barry points out via email that he already posted about this last year:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0408A&L=ADS-L&P=R5276

I had searched the archive for "Neily" but didn't see anything. Barry
transcribed the name as "Nelly" so the search didn't catch it. Just to
clarify, the writer's name was indeed "Neily":

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/N/Neily_Harry.stm

Sorry about that, Barry.


--Ben Zimmer

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 04:41:49 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

>Back in May 2002 Fred Shapiro asked if Tad Dorgan first popularized the
>expression, "Yes, we have no bananas."  I see this claim in a number of
>obituaries for Dorgan when he died in 1929. The claim was also apparently
>made in 1923 at the height of the "bananas" craze, but a correspondent to
>the Chicago Tribune's "Line O' Type Or Two" column disputed this and
>provided a Chicago origin...
>
>-----
>http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=309&VName=HNP&did=353658982
>Chicago Tribune, July 23, 1923, p. 6/3
>Sir: "Yes: we have no bananas" was originated in the Fall of 1920 at Senn
>High School by Spud and his gang. Harry Neily introduced it in the Chicago
>American, and used it freely in the late edition. Tad Dorgan copied it
>from Neily. Whosit.
>-----
>http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=309&VName=HNP&did=353661812
>Chicago Tribune, July 25, 1923, p. 6/3
>Harry Neily, while not denying that he did his due bit in fomenting the
>banana panic, reproaches us as uncraftsmanly for permitting Whosit to say
>so.
>-----
>
>Senn High School, on Chicago's Northeast Side, is still around:
>
>http://www.cps.k12.il.us/schools/hsdirectory/schools/nicholas_senn.shtml
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer