Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 51. The Word Origin today is
the Big Apple. Which is commonly used as a nickname for New York City. So over the
years I've often had students ask me why do they call New York City " the Big Apple"
and at first to be honest ... the first times I was asked and you really know for sure.
Even though I was born and raised in New York City, I still didn't know for sure.
At that time, I thought it might have actually had something to do with in
upstate New York it's known for growing apples, and having a lot of apples. I
thought it might of had something to do with that. But then of course I found out
that that is not it. Because I looked it up eventually. Anyway, let's, let's take a
look at the note here. The origin of the nickname, the Big Apple for New York City
dates all the way back to the early 1920s. John Fitzgerald, a New York City
newspaper reporter heard two stable hands in New Orleans mentioning they
were going to New York going to the Big Apple in reference to New York City.
So right you know stable hands they, they work in on horses especially horse
horses that race. So that's why this happened. At that time New York City's
racetracks were considered to be big time. So I guess if they had a racing
horse, they wanted to get their horse to race in one of those racetracks in New
York City. Well let's continue here. John Fitzgerald often started to refer to New York
City in his articles as the Big Apple. So you know , you know, in some ways he well
he didn't actually coin it because he heard somebody else said it. But he
really kind of popularized it. I guess because he started using it in articles
and then it probably caught on a bit All right but there's actually more to the
story because I remember when I first looked it up. I first heard this story. I
heard the one about the jazz musicians. So let's continue here. In the 1930 jazz
musicians also started to use this term because they thought New York City clubs
were big leagues. So they also thought New York City had some of the best jazz
clubs in the world for jazz. However, there are some stories that claim jazz
musicians referred to gigs as apples. Remember if they got... if they were able
to get a booking to play their music, that's a gig. And they referred to gigs
as apples and if they were lucky enough to get a booking in New York City, that
was considered to be the Big Apple. So in New York city, have big apples. However
there are some stories ....Yeah. Some stories claim musicians were referred to gigs as
apples and the gig in New York City was the Big Apple. So they were lucky to get
that. That's the first story I heard about the origin. But really a lot of
people say the one about John Fitzgerald is probably true or maybe they got the
idea from that. Maybe they did claim um gigs were apples as well . But anyway
here's two stories which both claim that maybe this is the origin or the start of
the term " the Big Apple. " All right. But let's continue. It's not completely the end of
the story here. Yet . They say the nickname died down for a while. So it kind of
stopped being used. So much, so commonly for a period. But was revived. It was
brought back, in the early 1970s by a New York City ad campaign for tourism. So I
guess you know , it sounds kind of cool. You know the Big Apple like you know
there's something really special about New York City. It's the Big Apple. The
nickname has stuck ever since. Yeah and I can remember you know not, not the New York
Yankees, but there's another baseball team called the New York Mets.
very time somebody hit a homerun or especially if a met hit a homerun, they
used to have this big mechanical Apple that used to come up too. So it's kind
of stuck since that time. So you often hear people refer to they, they going to
the Big Apple. Or you know somebody is from the Big Apple , meaning New York City.
Okay anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it's
clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.