Emily in East Tennessee grew up hearing her West Tennessee father say someone who did something clever had got melon. That likely works because melon is a familiar slang comparison for the human head, the place where the brains are. English has a whole produce aisle of similar words used to refer to the head, including cabbage, calabash, gourd, and filbert, another name for a hazelnut. Hawaiian offers a neat reverse comparison: ipo’o kanaka, literally something like “human head gourd,” refers to a watermelon with smooth skin and red pulp. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Got Melon” Likely Comes from “Melon” as Slang for the Head”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi there, this is Emily calling from East Tennessee.
Okay, well, what’s up?
Yeah, I was just calling to ask about a phrase that I heard my father saying a lot when I was growing up.
He’s from West Tennessee, and he would often say, like, if I did something smart or somebody did something kind of intelligently, he would say that they’ve got melon.
And I was wondering if you guys had any information about that, like where it might come from or other places that might use it.
Got melon. You got any guesses?
Well, I know that sometimes people use melon to refer to like your noggin.
But that’s really all I know.
I think that’s it. I think you nailed it, Emily.
So it’s just about having brains because melon is used to mean head and head contains your brains.
Just like you’d say someone has a good head on their shoulders, you can say they have a good melon.
And we do have a tradition of English of using food words to refer to the brain.
So calabash, which is a kind of gourd or grape used in the military, or filbert, another name for the hazelnut.
And all of these just are about comparisons one way or another from the food item to your head.
And nut itself.
And it’s a really common comparison.
It pops up again and again in languages to call your head a melon.
In Hawaiian, in the Hawaiian language, it goes the other direction.
There’s a kind of watermelon that is called ipo’o kanaka, which basically means human head gourd,
Because it has smooth skin on the outside and red pulp inside, so it’s kind of like a head.
That’s really interesting.
I should tell you before we go, though, one of my favorite bits of slang for the human head comes from the U.S. Marines,
Where in order to kind of mock the military’s use of unnecessary jargon for everything,
They call your head the brain housing group.
They just make it super ridiculously jargony.
Use your brain housing group, Emily.
I might start using that phrase.
That’s really great.
Yeah, your instincts were good.
You’re rock solid there.
Thank you for calling.
All right.
You guys have a good day.
Bye-bye.
You too.
Take care.
Well, I know our listeners have melon, too, and they’re more than welcome to use that melon to call us, 877-929-9673, toll-free in the United States and Canada, or talk to us on social media or through our website at waywordradio.org.
