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No Bananas Allowed In Women's Prisons?

UsernameHere1 said:
Let's see. The banana is native to the Americas, and thus would have become known to Europe and the Middle East in 1492 at the earliest. The Koran was written in the 700s.
Nope - it's native to Asia originally. India grows more than anyone else. In fact, the name banana is derived from the Arabic for hand, IIRC.

We introduced them to the American colonies.
 
UsernameHere1 said:
Let's see. The banana is native to the Americas, and thus would have become known to Europe and the Middle East in 1492 at the earliest. The Koran was written in the 700s.

Wow! Talk about PRESCIENT!
 
I thought the Koran was only 500 years old, as was mentioned in another thread???
 
Quake42 said:
I thought the Koran was only 500 years old, as was mentioned in another thread???

About 1400 years old I think.

Oh ok, dunno where I got the 500 years from. Just tried to check for myself but there isn't an easy link. However there was mentioning of 1000 year old verses... so your 1400 are probably a better guess, thanks.
 
Muhammad received the Q'uran/Koran in about 610 CE (AD), he started preaching it sometime after and in 622CE migrated from Mecca to Medina, the Hegira, and it's that which is year 2 in the Islamic calendar.

So on those figures the Q'uran/Koran is a shade under 1400 years old.
 
One thing that confuses many non-Muslims is the dating on "Arabic" coins. Since the dating is from 622 A. D. (in Western usage), an Arabic coin from 2006 A. D. will read read "1384" in Arabian numerals (the same ones we use).

People finding such coins in the West often take them to antique shops and numismatists, thinking they've found something "really old." This was especially true in the years immediately following World War Two when American oil workers in the Middle East began sending such coins home. But, once again, that nice old coin reading "1326" was in reality 1948 A. D.
 
Easy

Only Forteans, I should think, could move so easily from discussing bananas (or the lack of them) in female prisons to documenting the age of the Koran, which doesn't mention bananas at all.
 
Back on Topic

Returning to topic, I can think of one reason why bananas MIGHT be banned in prisons - female and male alike.

Bananas could easily be used to make floor and climbing surfaces slippery, and thus utilized to send a guard (pardon me, "corrections officer") or another prisoner crashing headlong down a long flight of steel stairs.
 
Which brings us onto another possible legend: is it actually possible to slip up on a banana?
 
I don't see why not. You could probably slip on a slice of pineapple too if you weren't careful.
 
H_James said:
Which brings us onto another possible legend: is it actually possible to slip up on a banana?

Yes, I've done it, although I caught myself before falling.

You can easily test the slipperyness by placing a banana peel, pulp side down, on a table top and seeing how easily it slides under the heel of your hand.

And banana-based sprays have been used by the authorities for crowd control, by making streets too slipperry to stand upon.

During World War Two American machine shops and defense plants (and probably British, too) effectively turned to banana oil lubricants as petroleum was more and more necessary to propel ships, planes, Jeeps, tanks and so on. That odor remains one of my earliest and most pungent childhood memories.
 
H_James said:
Which brings us onto another possible legend: is it actually possible to slip up on a banana?

Yes!

My mother slipped on one on a bus (I kid you not). Some litterbug had left a banana peel on the floor and she landed on her backside.
 
what little i know

I know nothing about bananas and women's prisons, but in a class I was taking during spring 2006 a group of students did a project on the reference materials that should be included in a library in a women's prison. They used as a model a women's prison here in the in the Late Great Garden State (New Jersey, USA) and after great difficulty (including background checks by the department of corrections), they actually got to talk by phone to the prison librarian.

As is well known, fruit is almost always prohibited in libraries, prison or not. But in NJ prisons hardcover books are prohibited, because the Man is afraid they would be used as weapons.

I go with the theory that someone will figure out how to make a banana into a weapon. And since women are probably smarter than men, they will figure it out more quickly. And that's why the bananas are forbidden in women's prisons.

It's logical, no?
 
"Women are probably smarter than men"?

Hillbilly, I think I love you. ;) You are a truly enlightened man.

And I don't know why bananas would be forbidden to female prisoners and not to males--unless the prison authorities are afraid that the women might turn to the fruit as--er--"consolers".

Of course, such a use for a fruit would never, ever occur to me. :twisted:

And I too have heard that in harems, women were not allowed fruits or vegtables such as cucumbers unless they had been sliced and diced beforehand, lest the lonely ladies start getting salacious ideas. If this is true, it sounds very similar to the "ban" on bananas (whoops! unintentional pun!!) in women's prisons.

Anyway, thanks to all for a very hearty laugh.
 
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