Englishgo bananas
Meaning: To go crazy; to no longer be able to cope with a situation. To drive someone bananas means to annoy or irritate someone.
Example: “The kids went bananas when they saw the puppy.”
Other ways to say this
Spanish: Estar como una cabra Literally: To be like a goat- English: mad as a box of frogs
- English: Mad as a hatter
Danish: At gå agurk Literally: To go cucumber
Afrikaans: Hy is van sy trollie af Literally: He's off his trolley- English: off one's trolley
Origin: "Bananas" meaning crazy is documented by 1968, though the word had already carried a narrower underworld slang sense of "sexually perverted" since 1935. The most credible theory, from lexicographer J. E. Lighter, ties it to the earlier, related phrase "go ape" — apes and monkeys have long been associated with wild, unrestrained behavior in popular imagination, and bananas are their most iconic food, making "go bananas" a natural fruit-based cousin of the ape idiom rather than an independent invention. Several other, considerably shakier theories circulate as well, including ones built on the fruit's curved shape or on various supposed erotic connotations, but none carries anything close to the evidence behind the ape connection.
More English idioms
- go broke To run out of money completely; to become penniless.
- go it alone To travel some path or do some activity by oneself, often something dangerous or risky.
- go out on a limb To take a risk.
- go to pieces To fall apart physically or emotionally; to lose one's self-control.
- go to the dogs To fall into disrepair; to deteriorate.
- go up in smoke To disappear; to be ruined.
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