No Apology Is Not Acceptable (continued)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

"BIG APPLE (...)Mr. Calloway may have been on the right track about the term's popularization: the phrase was black-English jazz talk in the mid-thirties."
--WILLIAM SAFIRE'S NEW POLITICAL DICTIONARY (1993).

   "I'm sorry."
   Those are the words.  "I apologize."  "I'm sorry."  It doesn't cost anything to say them.  It's free.  And if you don't say them, you're probably not sorry at all.
   Fast (or slow) forward seven years, to tomorrow's NEW YORK TIMES:

   "The etymologist Barry Popik has long been campaigning to give coinage honors to John J. Fitzgerald, a turf writer."

   I have never said that John J. Fitz Gerald coined "the Big Apple," nor has Fitz Gerald ever said it.
   By the way, his name is "Fitz Gerald," not "Fitzgerald."  No one reading his article would make that error.  I want a New York Times correction for this, at the very least.

   "There's only one _Big Apple_."

   Fitz Gerald did _not_ put this in italics.  HAS SAFIRE EVEN READ WHAT FITZ GERALD WROTE?

   "After Fitzgerald popularized the term, crediting it to African-American stable hands in New Orleans in 1920..."

   Fitz Gerald did not, in 1920, credit it to African-American stable hands.  Nor did Fitz Gerald ever  credit it to African-American stable hands "in 1920."  Fitz Gerald credited it to African American stable hands, and I have researched that Fitz Gerald COULD have  heard it when he was with Jake Byer in New Orleans in January 1920.

   Again, I ask that The New York Times run Fitz Gerald's FULL WORDS, and Ed Martin's FULL WORDS, and to finally recognize the fact that there is a Big Apple Corner in our city.  This would require, my god, maybe a whole Safire column, maybe even two or three columns.
   When Gerald Cohen copied to me an e-mail that William Safire's assistant had requested the Edward Martin quote--AND NOT THE JOHN J. FITZ GERALD MATERIAL--I knew that John J. Fitz Gerald would be sunk once again.
   Here are a few things from WorldCat that I told Safire's assistant about, but that never did get mentioned:

1896--LIFE IN THE ARKANSAS VALLEY OF COLORADO: THE HOME OF THE BIG RED APPLE (Denver, Colo.: Colorado Orchard Company).
1898--AMONG THE OZARKS: THE LAND OF "BIG RED APPLES" (Kansas City, Mo.: Hudson Kimberly, 20th edition).
1908--WENATCHEE, THE HOME OF THE BIG RED APPLE: WHERE THE DOLLARS GROW ON TREES (Wenatchee, Wash.: Commercial Club).
1908--CHELAN COUNTY, WASHINGTON, THE HOME OF THE BIG RED APPLE (Wenatchee Commercial Club).
c. 1908--WESTERN APPLE LANDS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST: ROUTE OF THE ORIENTAL LIMITED, FAST MAIL, THE GREAT NORTHERN EXPRESS: THREE FAST DAILY TRAINS TO THE LAND OF THE BIG RED APPLES (St. Paul, Minn.: Great Northern Railway).
1910--POST FALLS IRRIGATED TRACTS: THE HOME OF THE BIG RED APPLE...IN THE WONDERFUL SPOKANE VALLEY (CHicago, J. A. McLane Co.).
c. 1910--OVERTON AND THE GREAT OVERTON COUNTRY, THE HOME OF THE ELBERTA PEACH, THE BIG RED APPLE AND THE LUSCIOUS STRAWBERRY (Overton, Tex.: Overton Improvement Club).
c. 1910--THINK OF A HOME IN BRITISH COLUMBIA, THE LAND OF THE BIG RED APPLE (Winnipeg: Canadian Dominion Development).
1912--FRUIT RANCHING IN B.C.: GO WHERE THE ARROW POINTS (Winnipeg, Candian Dominion Development Ltd.) (At bottom of cover: The land of the Big Red Apple).

     From the Making of America database (Cornell):

     "SHE'S a darling!" ejaculated the bay mare, between munches of the big red apple.
     "That's just what she is!" responded the off carriage horse; and then, as part of his apple fell to the floor, he added fretfully: "I do wish, Lassie, that you girls wouldn't talk to a fellow when he's doing something!  I've lost half my apple!"

    Again, if William Safire didn't want to quote all of this, he should have written--after eight years--nothing at all about New York City's nickname, "the Big Apple."

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BIG APPLE DRINK (continued)

    From TAVERN WEEKLY NEWS, 23 December 1940, pg. 14, col. 5:

_HERE'S THE LATEST_
_RECIPE ON THAT_
_"BIG APPLE" DRINK_
     The approaching holidays demand a better type of liquor service at the finer bars, clubs and hotels.  Package stores too will find that their customers are eager to provide better drink service at their festive dinner parties.
     To meet this Holiday need, DuBouchett has created a number of smart and unusual drinks of the Big Apple, featured here is probably the most startling ever developed.
     The preparation of the apple is as follows:
Slice off the top of the apple--then scoop the insides clean--place into a sherbet or large wine glass--decorate with colored leaves and insert two half size straws in between the top and the apple.
     There are several types of drinks or cocktails which you may serve or suggest serving in the hollow part of the "Big Apple."  Here are a few that DuBouchett has found to be desirable.
     A delicious fruit cocktail over which you may pour a grenadine syrup, an alcoholic cocktail or brandy, or eliminate the fruit and serve the delightful Sloe Gin Cocktail in the hollow of the apple.  The Sloe Gin Cocktail is a pleasant mild before dinner drink which will meet with every ones (sic) approval.  It is made as follows:

   Place 3 or 4 cubes of ice in bar glass.
   1 jigger DuBouchett Sloe Gin.
   1 pony DuBouchett French Type Vermouth.
   1 dash DuBouchett Cocktail Bitters.
   Stir well, strain into apple.