stun
- Function: transitive verb
- Infelcted Form(s): stunned; stun·ning
- Etymology: Middle English stonen, stunen, from Anglo-French estoner
- to make senseless, groggy, or dizzy by or as if by a blow.
- to overcome especially with paralyzing astonishment or disbelief.
Libby’s Comes Only From Hawaii
An example of early feminism in advertising? The Gidget in front isn’t having any trouble riding her log, while the Barney in the background can’t even stand up.
Farmers Market
Visitors are always welcome here. Among the many things to see, are the eye-catching fruit displays.
Sun-ripened and sweet — a golden girl with a golden Hawaiian pineapple.
Palaku momona — he ohi ‘ehu a he halakahi melemele.
Roughly translated, “Palaku momona — he ohi ‘ehu a he halakahi melemele,” means, “Wait a minute. Haven’t I seen that caption somewhere before?”
Sun-ripened and sweet — a golden girl with a golden Hawaiian pineapple.
Palaku momona — he ohi ‘ehu a he halakahi melemele.
Hawaiian fruits and vegetables identified from top, clockwise: Pineapple, papaya (green and gold), mangoes (red blush), egg plant (dark purple), Chinese preserving melon (pale green, smooth), bitter melons (light green, crinkled), avocado (dark green at bottom), bananas, and husked coconuts. In her hair, the girl wears red hibiscus, Hawaii’s official flower; the lei is of plumeria or frangipani.
No caption.
I love this postcard. Perhaps it’s the unusual presentation of the pineapples, or the hand-tinting, or the fact that the name of the city in Ceylon reminds me of a Martin Sexton song. Or perhaps I’m just a sucker for any postcard featuring a fabulous pineapple babe.
There’s actually a variety of pineapple called “Red Ceylon” (ananas comosus CV ‘Red Ceylon’), which is, quite appropriately, the most common pineapple grown in Sri Lanka (nee Ceylon) and India.
“The leaves are dark green with broad red central stripe and red spines on the margins. The fruit is small, 3 to 5 lbs (1.36-2.25 kg), yellow externally; has a thin core and very sweet flesh.”
Source: Purdue University’s
Center for New Crops & Plants Products
However, in 2000, Géo Coppens D’Eeckenbrugge and Freddy Leal had the audacity to suggest in The Application of the International Code of Nomenclature to Pineapple Cultivars that the “Red Ceylon” was the horticultural equivalent of an urban legend:
“Following the code, ‘Smooth Cayenne’ is clearly a cultivar….’Queen’ is also a cultivar. A detailed study might allow distinguishing clear differences between local populations or between clonal selections. However no sufficient data exist. Shoot and slip numbers are particularly variable traits. Some selections exhibit particular vigor, as ‘Mc Gregor’, but they cannot be distinguished from other similar selections. Thus, names as ‘Mauritius,’ ‘Malacca,’ ‘Red Ceylon,’ and ‘Buitenzorg.’ ‘Ripley Queen’, ‘Alexandra’ and ‘Mc Gregor’ must be considered synonyms to ‘Queen’. Only the tetraploid ‘Z’ or ‘James Queen’, found in South Africa (Nyenhuis, 1974), must be considered a distinct cultivar.”
Rubbish! And if you’re going to consolidate the naming conventions, surely an exotic name like “Red Ceylon” should win out over something as bland as “Queen.”
But they’re right about “Buitenzorg,” which should be taken out behind the nomenclature shed and put out of its misery.
No caption.
Let’s get one thing straight, people: The pineapple is not a toy. Just look at this description of the pineapple plant’s foliage:
“The long, pointed leaves are 20-72 in. in length, usually needle-tipped and generally bearing sharp, upcurved spines on the margins.”
That’s not a fruit, that’s a weapon! Yet look how blithely The Pineapple Girl holds her spiky namesake. Oblivious to the hazards, she beams at the camera, not realizing that one of those pointed, needle-tipped, sharp spines is about to puncture her cornea.
But that’s not all…
Toxicity
Workers who cut up pineapples have their fingerprints almost completely obliterated by pressure and the keratolytic effect of bromelain (calcium oxalate crystals and citric acid were excluded as the cause).
The recurved hooks on the left margins can painfully injure one.
Mitchell and Rook (1979) also restated earlier work on “pineapple estate pyosis” occurring in workers who gather the fruits, probably an acarus infestation with secondary bacterial infection.
Angular stomatitis can result from eating the fruit.
Ethyl acrylate, found in the fruits, produced sensitisation in 10 of 24 subjects “by a maximisation test.” Ethyl acrylate is used in creams, detergents, food, lotions, perfumes, and soaps.
In “therapeutic doses”, bromelain may cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin rash, and menorrhagia. Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk (1969-1979) restate a report, unavailable to me, of unusual toxic symptoms following ingestion of the fruit, heart failure with cyanosis and ecchymoses, followed by collapse and coma and sometimes death (Duke, 1984b).
Purdue University
Center for New Crops & Plant Products
So, Pineapple Upside-Down Cake: “Topsy-Turvy Treat” or “Dessert of Death?”
One of Hawaii’s big crops is pineapples, appropriately called “the King of Fruits, by Nature Crowned.”
My initial response to seeing this postcard was, “What are leaders of the Free German Youth doing picking pineapples in Hawaii?”
But after taking a closer look I realized it was most likely just a promotional shot from the never-released made-for-TV movie, Miss Hathaway Takes A Holiday.
Visitors and islanders enjoy sampling ripe fresh Royal Hawaiian pineapple at Dole’s “space age” fruit stand in the middle of fields at Wahiawa.
Dancing girl with canned pineapple, noted product of Okinawa, in her hands.When I placed an order for postcards featuring “dancing girls,” this isn’t necessarily what I had in mind…
Dole guides pose beneath the pineapple water tower, a famous Honolulu landmark. More than 100,000 visitors each year tour spick-and-span Dole “kitchen”, the world’s largest fruit cannery. Jim Dole started Hawaii’s pineapple industry in 1901.
Tiny Pineapple is the home of Grettir Asmundarson, ne'er-do-well, sluggard, and wastrel.
