[Ads-l] banana

[Stanton McCandlish]

I don't think "banana" is "chiefly Canadian".  I've encountered it in
California since the 1990s.  Like a lot of these terms, it's going to be
seen as deprecation in many cases when used by others, a slur when used by
white people in particular, but not generally a negative when used as
self-description.  E.g., my Chinese-Scottish-American girlfriend in the
late 1990s used the term to describe her entire immediate family, with
humor.  I'm wondering where OED got "Canadian" from, since their cite is to
a US Pacific Northwest newspaper.  Speaking of which, said girlfriend
actually went to college in Washington state, and may have picked up the
term there, though I heard it a few other times when I lived in San
Francisco (1995–2004).  I'm in Oakland now (2012–) and don't specifically
recall hearing it on this side of the SF Bay. I have heard "Oreo", but
"acting white" or "talking white" are more common expressions over here.
More to the point, when I lived in Toronto (eastern Canada), I did not
encounter "banana", nor when I lived in New Mexico, the UK, or the
DC/Maryland area.  Very anecdotal, of course, but I would suspect the PNW
is where it originated.

--
Stanton McCandlish
McCandlish Consulting
5400 Foothill Blvd Suite B
Oakland CA 94601-5516

+1 415 234 3992

https://www.linkedin.com/in/SMcCandlish




On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 12:14 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> This sense of "banana" was added to the OED in a Sept. 2013 draft addition,
> with cites back to 1970.
>
> ----
>   North American (chiefly Canadian) slang (depreciative). A person of Asian
> birth or descent who subscribes to typically western values and attitudes;
> an oriental person regarded, esp. by other orientals, as adopting or
> identifying with white culture. Cf. Oreo n.1 2.
> 1970   Seattle Times Mag. 5 July 9/3   These Filipinos may not be 'oreos'
> or 'bananas', as blacks and other Asians depict their colleagues having
> dark skins outside and a white mentality inside.
> [etc.]
> ----
>
> (The OED's use of "oriental" in the definition is... unfortunate.)
>
> HDAS starts with the same 1970 cite. See also GDoS, with cites back to
> 1972.
>
> https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/ag4nw3a
>
> --bgz
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 2:54 PM James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>
> wrote:
>
> > A variation on the metaphor "Oreo cookie" = "black on the outside, white
> > on the inside"
> >
> > Kevin Kwan _China Rich Girlfriend_  (Kwan's inferior seqeul to _Craxy
> Rich
> > Asians_) New York: Doubleday, 2015, ISBN 978-0-385-53908-1 (hardcover)
> page
> > 169
> >
> > referring to "Rachel", born in China but raised in the US:  "Rachel is
> > cool, there's no bullshit with her.  And she's a total banana [footnote],
> > isn't she?  Just look at how she dresses [page 170] in those  no-name
> > brands, her painful lack of jewelry---she's not like any Chinese girl
> I've
> > ever met."
> >
> > footnote reads "Yellow on the outside, white on the inside"
> >
> > - Jim Landau
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org