[Ads-l] banana

[Wilson Gray]

[Begin excerpt]
When I asked him about the effect of having another Asian-American,
Dr. S. I. Hayakawa, as president of the college, Mr. Woo smiled
bleakly and said, "He's a banana, if you know what I mean. He is
yellow on the outside and white on the inside."
[End excerpt]

Re S. I. Hayakawa, truer words were never spoken.

On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 5:31 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks Jim, Ben, and Stanton. Here is a January 1970 citation for
> "banana" with the desired sense a few months before the OED citation
>
> Date: January 4, 1970
> Newspaper: The Los Angeles Times
> Newspaper Location: Los Angeles, California
> Section: WEST Magazine
> Article: The Awakening of Chinatown
> Author: Kenneth Lamott
> Start Page 6, Quote Page 14, Column 1
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> When I asked him about the effect of having another Asian-American,
> Dr. S. I. Hayakawa, as president of the college, Mr. Woo smiled
> bleakly and said, "He's a banana, if you know what I mean. He is
> yellow on the outside and white on the inside."
> [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 3:14 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
>


-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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