Why is New York City called the Big Apple? In the 1920s, a writer named John Fitz Gerald used it in a column about the horseracing scene, because racetrack workers in New Orleans would say that if a horse was successful down South, they’d send it to race in the Big Apple, namely at New York’s Belmont Park. For just about everything you’d ever want to know about this term, visit the site of etymological researcher Barry Popik. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Big Apple”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi.
Hi, who’s this?
Shelly Nolkins in Antrim, New Hampshire.
Hi, Shelly.
Hi, Shelly.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you.
What can we do for you?
Well, I’ve had a question for quite a long time, and I’ve never received a satisfactory answer.
I’m originally from Manhattan, and I always heard the term Big Apple to describe the area, and I always wanted to know where that came from and what it actually meant.
Well, that’s a great question.
And fortunately, I know the men who have come to be the experts on this topic, the ones who’ve done the research.
And actually, they’ve done a really good job also of keeping the Wikipedia page up to date for the Big Apple.
Barry Poppik and Jerry Cohen.
Jerry is at the, I believe it’s, I forget what it’s called now, the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Ralla, Missouri.
And Barry Poppik is a etymologist in Austin, Texas.
And what they discovered in their research in the old microfilm databases at the research library right there on 42nd Street in New York City is that in the 1920s, there was a writer by the name of John J. Fitzgerald.
And Fitzgerald used it in a column that he was writing about the horse racing scene in New York City and New Orleans and some other places.
And so he first uses it in 1921 just to talk about New York as the Big Apple, meaning the place that everyone wanted to go.
And then he starts to institutionalize this word in his writing.
And so by 1924, he’d used it enough where he’d gotten questions from people.
What do you mean by this Big Apple?
And he explained it.
And he picked it up from the men who worked with horses in stables around racetracks in New Orleans.
They were using it to talk about, you know, if your horse did well in New Orleans, you’d ship them up to New York and run the big races up there in Belmont and Saratoga.
So that’s the really short version.
Now, there are many competing theories.
This is the one that all the language historians that I know buy into.
So, Shelley, it sounds like it came from the world of horse racing then and was adopted by a sports…
Was he a sports rider?
He was a sports rider, yeah, yeah.
And then it became…
And then it kind of languished for a while, then through the 30s and the 40s, it would occasionally pop up and be used.
And then in the 1970s, when New York City was trying to revive this image, it became a part of the big campaign to kind of humanize New York City, kind of take some of the scariness away, so to make people stop thinking about crime and the city’s debt and graffiti and start to think about a little more natural things and the good things and the wonderful things that New York City has to offer.
Great. Thank you.
Sure. Take care. Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
Bye, Shelly.
Is there a word or phrase that’s puzzled you? Call us about it, 877-929-9673, or you can send an email to us. That’s words@waywordradio.org.
