Angora (1834); Albin Krebs & the Big Apple

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ANGORA

NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS IN EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA,
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
by Evliya Efendi
translated from the Turkish by the Ritter Joseph von Hammer
London:  Printed for the Oriental Trnslation Fund of Great Britain and
Ireland
sold by Parbury, Allen, & Co
1834

   Yes, there's more in this book.
   OED has 1819 for "Angora cat" and 1833 for "Angora goat."  Thus, this
translation--175 years later--is nearly an antedate for "angora."  Some
people think the name of Turkey's capital, Ankara, comes from Angora, but
that's another etymology.

VOLUME TWO
Pg. 232:
   The hair is then worked into Shalloons, and both men and women are busy at
making or selling them.  The Franks tried to transport the goats of Angora
into their own country, but God be praised! they degenerated into common
goats, and the stuff wove from their hair was no Suf (Shalloon).  They then
took the hair of the Angora-goat and tried to work it into Sof, but were
never able to give it the true lustre (Maj).  They now make of it for their
monks a kind of black shalloon, which however has neither colour nor lustre.
The inhabitants of Angora say that the exclusive working of fine shalloon is
granted them by the miracles of Haji Bairam, and the water and air.  Indeed
the sof (Shalloon) of Angora is the most famous in the world; the chalk also
of Angora is renowned.

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ALBIN KREBS & THE BIG APPLE

   In today's (Tuesday's) NEW YORK TIMES, you will find this little item:

_Albin Krebs, 73, Times Obituary Writer, Dies_

   And you'll go right past it.  But for me, it sure brings back old
memories.
   In 1975, "the Big Apple" was fast becoming the hot new name for New York
City.  Someone on the Times was assigned to do the definitive article.  That
someone was Albin Krebs.
   Krebs wrote, in 1975, that "the Big Apple" was popularized by Damon
Runyon.
   Now, Krebs could have stepped into the New York Public Library and filled
out a call slip for RUNYONESE: THE MIND AND CRAFT OF DAMON RUNYON (1965) by
Jean Wagner.  Had he done so, he'd have found a long list of Runyonese, with
"Big Apple" never mentioned.  About two years later, William Safire called
"the Big Apple" a "Runyonesque" phrase.
   In 1995, former NYC Convention & Visitors Bureau President Charles Gillett
died.  The obituary writer was James Barron, who pulled the twenty-year-old
Krebs article out of the Times archives and used it in the Gillett obituary
as fact.
   When I wrote in to the Times--well, you know!
   And so it is that the New York Times can and did ignore the nickname of
its own city, and publish as fact--TWICE!--something based on no evidence
whatsoever.
   Krebs retired in 1989 and Gerald Cohen published his BIG APPLE book in
1991, so it's not entirely Krebs' fault.