Gerald Cohen, Missouri S&T professor of foreign languages. Photo by B.A. Rupert
Did you ever wonder how Chicago got the nickname Windy City? Are you curious why Philadelphia is called the City of Brotherly Love? Did you even know that Providence, R.I. is the Beehive of Industry?
City nicknames like these are fascinating to etymologists like Gerald Cohen. He’s spent two decades researching what is perhaps the most famous city nickname – New York’s Big Apple.
Cohen, professor of foreign languages at Missouri S&T, has co-authored a revised version of his 1991 monograph Origin of New York City’s Nickname ‘The Big Apple.’ The book, published by Peter Lang, was co-authored by independent scholar Barry Popik.
Cohen says there were several stages to the origin of the nickname.
“Apples were important throughout history, but the big red delicious apples developed in Iowa in the 1870s came to be regarded as extra special.” Cohen says. “That led to ‘the big apple’ being applied to things and people who were extra special, or perhaps only thought they were. Then in a 1920 conversation between two African American stable hands in New Orleans, one proudly said that he was going to ‘the big apple’ (meaning the New York City racetracks, which were regarded as the big time in horseracing).
NYC turf writer John J. Fitz Gerald overheard the conversation and a year later began using ‘the big apple’ in his columns, Cohen says, popularizing the term early on, but it was limited to horseracing.
“In the 1930s jazz musicians used ‘The Big Apple’ to describe New York City as the place where the greatest jazz in the world was being played,” Cohen says. “In the 1970s, a public relations man named Charles Gillett revived the term as part of a publicity campaign for the city.
“And, as they say, the rest is history,” Cohen says.
Cohen uses the term “The Big Apple” in his teaching.
“I teach a course on etymology and use ‘The Big Apple’ to illustrate what all can go into the origin of even a single term in our language,” Cohen says. “This in turn helps us appreciate the vast history that underlies even our common, everyday language. The history of individual words or expressions can sometimes be remarkable.”
Very interesting! Professor Cohen