The Big Apple

[Gerald Cohen]

On 3/6/02, James Smith wrote:

>--- Gerald Cohen <gcohen at UMR.EDU> wrote:
>>    The 1920 New Orleans stable hand could not have
>>  been referring to Aqueduct Racetrack when he spoke
>of "the big apple": ....
>
>He could have been referring "the big apple" to
>anything he wanted, at the moment he spoke it.
>
>Fitz Gerald's two versions of the conversation between
>the stable hands differ in many ways, indicating a
>less-than perfect recollection of the details and
>license in his use of quotation marks. ...

    Of course the stable hand had a constitutional right to be
thinking of anything he wanted when he uttered "the big apple." But
the fact remains that Aqueduct was never called "the big apple" in
any published (or unpublished) source; so it is safe to conclude that
"the big apple" was not a designation of Aqueduct.

        Therefore the stable hand could not have been referring to
Aqueduct when he made his "big apple" statement. There's no need to
regard this point as having any uncertainty.

Gerald Cohen