You can't lick a badger twice. And never catch a banana in a saucepan

[EscargotChic]

Someone discovered that if you search for "nonsense phrase + meaning" on Google, the AI produces a reverse-engineered explanation of the phrase. I've had a few goes and this is the best one it's come up with for me:
"never catch a banana in a saucepan meaning"
The saying "never catch a banana in a saucepan" is a Cockney rhyming slang phrase. It means "banana". The phrase likely originated from a music hall song called "Let's All Go Down the Strand" in the early 20th century. The lyrics included the line "Have a banana" after the refrain "Never catch a banana in a saucepan". Over time, the phrase "never catch a banana in a saucepan" became a rhyming slang term for "banana".

Search for 'you can't lick a badger twice' on Bluesky for some great examples (that one now doesn't work as a nonsense definition on Google as it brings up actual articles).

Serious point - I see people going on about ChatGPT and how great it is. A lot of the time it comes up with results that are broadly accurate, and the made-up stuff isn't as obvious as waffling about bananas and cockney rhyming slang, so people believe it. The nonsense definitions are fun, but hopefully seeing this sort of thing will help open people's eyes to how there isn't actually any 'intelligence' behind 'AI' - it just puts words, phrases and sentences together that are statistically likely to be found together in that order. It doesn't check for factual correctness or common sense, let alone challenge assumptions that are built into the question.

Rhyming slang is just that - ryhming. The clue is in the title...So apples and pears - stairs, barnet fair - hair
Thus, the phrase 'never catch a banana in a saucepan' is not, and cannot be ryhming slang for a banana. Clearly you are not from London, or you wouldn't believe this nonsense.
And the refrain 'never catch a banana in a saucepan' is not in the song 'Let's all go down the strand'.
This is a more sensible explanation:

The saying "never catch a banana in a saucepan" is an Australian idiom that means to avoid a situation or activity that is considered foolish or pointless. It's essentially an Australian way of saying "don't bother" or "you're wasting your time". The phrase originates from a joking perception that Queenslanders spend their time bending bananas, which is a humorous exaggeration. The saying highlights a sense of disbelief or absurdity at the idea of someone trying to bend or manipulate a banana in a saucepan

It's a big issue as these AI hallucinations appear just as plausible as the real stuff they generate. Large Language Models are only as useful as the source data they've got to work on and as soon as you get away from topics that they've got lots of references for they just make stuff up.

Earlier this year I googled for information about hysteroscopy. All the AI results conflated colonoscopy, ear endoscopy, gastroscopy, hysteroscopy...ie anything medical ending in -oscopy. These AI results are pushed to the top of the results, and repeated multiple times in the lists of results. So irresponsible and unhelpful.

Ouch, I hate to think of the potential consequences if people believe AI advice on medical issues.
When I searched for 'slug-resistant plants that flower in autumn' one of the suggestions Google's AI generated was daffodils. Particularly ironic as all mine had their flowers eaten by slugs and snails last year. In spring.

But you believe have a banana is rhyming slang for banana??

I think you’ve misunderstood the OP…

Interesting!
"The saying "never clean a rat with a wetwipe" is a humorous way of suggesting that you should never clean a rodent (like a rat) with a wet wipe, especially if you are handling them to clean the enclosure. The saying alludes to the fact that wet wipes are not designed to be used on living creatures and could potentially harm them."

A good lesson that generative AI outputs should only ever been taken as a guide, not the gospel truth!

I have read that you can beat this by swearing in your search term. I just googled ‘what is a fucking hysteroscopy’ and there were no AI results, top one was NHS.

So I am looking forward to both more profanity and accuracy in my search results.

Not on my work PC, of course.

🤣

Just tried this. ‘Fucking slug-resistant plants’: no AI suggestions, search results only! Genius.
Mind you I’m increasingly using DuckDuckGo on my phone, which is probably a better way of avoiding AI crap.