BANANA

See also: Appendix:Variations of "banana"

English

WOTD – 30 May 2019

Etymology

Contrived acronym of build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone (or anything), as a play on "bananas" meaning "crazy, mad"

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bə-näʹnə, IPA^(key): /bəˈnɑːnə/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: bə-năʹnə, IPA^(key): /bəˈnænə/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːnə, -ænə
• Homophone: banana
• Hyphenation: BA‧NA‧NA

Noun

BANANA (plural BANANAs)

1. (informal, humorous, derogatory, often attributively) One who objects to the building of any structure in their neighbourhood or a certain type of structure anywhere, especially in public policy debate. [from 1991 (Australia)]

   Synonym: (less strong) NIMBY

   • 1991 January 31, David Williams, “Nowhere, no time [letter]”, in The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, N.S.W., page 10:

     David Taylor (Letters, January 23) does not appear to be aware that the NIMBY syndrome, with all its parochial overtones, has been superseded by the all embracing BANANA syndrome – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.

   • 1992, Environment Reporter, volume 23, Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2028, column 1:

     Communities have gone far beyond the NIMBY, or not-in-my-backyard, syndrome. Jeff Langholtz, of EPA's Hazardous Site Control Division said, "Right now they don't want us to build them anywhere." Langholtz called the latest in public thinking "BANANA" – build-absolutely-nothing-anywhere-near-anything. Those opposed to incinerators are more organized than ever, he added.

   • 2002, Shirley J. Hansen, “Making the Most of Dereg”, in Manual for Intelligent Energy Services, Lilburn, Ga.: Fairmont Press, →ISBN, page 256:

     Unfortunately, in some areas you can expect the NIMBY fervor to grow into BANANAs—Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody. The ultimate result? Unless national security and economic issues intervene, we'll continue to rely more and more on imported fuel and the price of energy is most apt to climb higher. The high price of BANANAs, in the end, will not only be our dependence on foreign oil, but our economic vulnerability.

   • 2007, Michael D. Tusiani, Gordon Shearer, “Import-related Project Siting and Regulatory Issues”, in LNG: A Nontechnical Guide, Tulsa, Okla.: PennWell Corporation, →ISBN, pages 367–368:

     Opposition to these projects is increasingly the norm as opposed to the exception and is not simply limited to a few environmentaly sensitive and wealthy areas such as Southern California. Cynics have observed that the NIMBY movement is evolving into a BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone) or even a NOPE (nowhere on planet Earth) movement with regard to controversial infrastructure siting.

Usage notes

• The term is used as an expression of irritation towards people who are thought to be worse than NIMBYs.

Derived terms

• BANANA principle

Translations

one who objects to the building of any structure in their neighbourhood

See also

• LULU

Further reading

• NIMBY on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Paul McFedries (2003 September 9) “BANANA”, in Word Spy, Logophilia Limited, retrieved 4 June 2017.

Anagrams

• Annaba