SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the there's-always-money-in-the-banana-stand dept.
"Iceland is the king of the banana republics!" host Stephen Fry once declared confidently on the popular British game show "QI."
That sounds implausible: Just look at the island nation's pitted igneous landscape and brutal climate. But the claim isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. A rumor has circulated for the last 60 years proclaiming Iceland to be the banana capital of Europe.
Spoiler alert: It's not. But where did this rumor come from? Can Iceland even grow bananas? With average temperatures registering between 32 Fahrenheit in winter and a tepid 50 at the height of summer, Iceland's climate seems most suitable for growing mold and frostbite.
But Iceland's secret to agricultural innovation lies beneath the surface — way beneath.
Now we have all we need to colonize Antarctica.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday December 02 2016, @05:27AM
Not sure if I should mod this Informative:
A banana republic does not refer to the production of bananas, just like an elephant in the room does not refer to a literal elephant.
Or Funny
...now if Banana Republic ran Iceland, it would be a banana republic.
But I do find it very irksome that people don't even know what a banana republic is, nor that it is in fact a derogatory term.
Banana republic:
derogatory
A small state that is politically unstable as a result of the domination of its economy by a single export controlled by foreign capital.
I would also state that when I learned the term it was a country that was controlled directly, or indirectly, by foreign corporations. See United Fruit Co: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company [wikipedia.org] who's general actions the term was coined to define.