Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

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I've also heard "a wolf in cheap clothing".

A little story about quotes. At the battle of Bastogne, General MacAuliffe replied to the Wehrmacht's demand that he surrender with the one word "nuts".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Bastogne

I didn't believe it. Does that sound like something a GI would ever say? So I asked my dad (WW2, USAF vet and historian) was that quote true? Turns out, my dad had worked briefly for MacAuliffe, didn't believe it either. He asked MacAuliffe, who laughed, and said replied "what the hell do you think I said?"

I.e. the actual reply was "fuck you". Now that I can believe. The Stars & Stripes newspaper couldn't print that, so rewrote it as "nuts", and the rest is history.

P.S. what makes "nuts" even less credible is the expectation that the Wehrmacht would know what it meant. For example, at Caltech there were a lot of students from Hong Kong. One of them was a friend of mine, and he asked me, very puzzled, "what does go nuts mean?" I, being the boorish oaf that I am, said "it means go bananas". He looked even more puzzled, so I let him out of his misery saying it meant to go crazy." Ah, he replied.

But I'm sure the Germans knew well what FU meant.

> "it means go bananas"

Surely it means "Balls."

"Go bananas" means "go mad", I think, although I can't derive an etymology.

"Nuts" seems to mean "mad", as in "nutty as a fruitcake", which for me brings to mind something like a Dundee cake (heavy mixture of dried fruit and nuts). I still can't derive an etymological connection between madness and (fruit|nuts).

Nut can mean head, although it's a bit dated - giving nutcase and, in British English, nutter. I'd guess that's the root of it and that substitution gets you to other botanicals.

Edit: I checked OED and it gives that derivation route.

"Nut" as "head" makes sense. And it's still current; if you strike someone in the face with your forehead, you have nutted them.

So I buy "nutcase" as "head-case", therefore "mad".

I believe "go bananas" is a bit of metonymy from "go ape", possibly through "go apeshit", with the idea that bananas are something of a precursor to primate excrement.

Charles Nelson Reilly always made going bananas and being bright and gay and fruity seem like so much fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNvy-YnSw3c

The Life of Reilly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1gTQ5Gxhpw&list=PL59B970677...

"go nuts" and "go bananas" mean the same thing - go mad.

"Nuts" was a sanitized version of FU. I don't think Stars & Stripes meant it as "go bananas." They meant it as "nuts to you!" (a phrase which Feynman's wife actually uses to him in a letter, in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!)

They recreated that scene in Battle of the Bulge. (1965).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8mb3O5u6ig

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