Oh bananas!

So I think of myself as an extremely amateur etymologist and linguist – I sort of love tracking changes to language and usage over time, and watching folks get frustrated as they get a little older and realize that they aren't the ones making up new slang, they are the ones who get annoyed that they don't know the new slang.

But a thing I notice is that the essential interconnectedness of our society these days means that new phrases and idiosyncrasies seem to make their way around the globe pretty quick – who doesn't know what "the rizz" means at this point? Reading Twitter and Reddit, I feel like the acceptable band of language is pretty thin-ish these days.

I don't think "the internet has made language more homogenous" is a fresh take or anything, but it is something I notice nevertheless, and makes me a little bit sad maybe, which is why I was slightly shook by the drive-thru attendant at The Habit the other night, when he screwed up my order and charged me for 3 orders of onion rings:

"Oh bananas, I charged you for 3 onion rings. Do you want all of those?"

Leaving aside the fact that I look to this dude like a guy who might want to consume three orders of onion rings, I've had "oh bananas" ringing in my ears for like 12 hours. Oh bananas! Someone is going to read this and tell me that "oh bananas" is a thing, but I kinda don't think it is? I googled it, and got, like, a weird business in the Midwest, and a Ween song called "Bananas and Blow" (???). If I drop the "s" I get the immortal "OH BANANA" from Donkey Kong 64, but no one saying "oh bananas!" as a stand in for "dammit" or "crap" or "oh shoot."

All of this is to say, "oh bananas" is a great phrase, but it's also a pretty good prompt for all of us to maybe lean into our own personalities a little bit and grab our own little unique ways of expressing ourselves, as tempting as it maybe to lean on the Tiktok kids to tell us how to talk.