Big Apple Big Onion

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

I hope that someone will respond with info on the more accepted origins of the Big Apple instead of just ridiculing this suggestion, imaginative as it may be.

I'm curious about the underlying claim that many of the (Scots-)Irish immigrants were bilingual. Does anyone have figures on the rates of bilingualism? I seem to remember reading that there were few Irish/Gaelic transfers into American English, at least in the lexicon.

-----Original Message-----
From:   Daniel Cassidy [mailto:DanCas1 at AOL.COM]
Sent:   Tue 1/14/2003 9:52 PM
To:     ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Cc:	
Subject:             Big Apple Big Onion

A Chairde:

I believe the origin of the Big Apple and the Big Onion as monickers for my 
hometown of NYC involves the Irish language. The Irish words Áth (pronounced 
Ahh), for a ford or river crossing, and béal (pron. beeul), for the mouth of 
a river, appear in hundreds of place names in Ireland.  



Big Apple
Big Áth Béal
Big Crossing at the Mouth (of the Rivers)
New York City.

Áth: Ford; a river crossing. 
Béal: Mouth (of a river).

+++

Belfast: Béal Feirste: Mouth of the Farset River; or approach to the 
sandbank/river Farset.  Béal can also mean “approach to a river crossing place
”  as well as the "mouth" of a river or a person.

Dublin: Baile Átha Cliath: Settlement of the Ford of the Hurdles 
(of the Liffey river).  

New York: The Big  Áth  Béal: The Big Ford (at the) Mouth 
(of the Hudson and East rivers).


New York's monicker, then, incorporates one word each from the Irish names 
for Belfast and Dublin, Áth and Béal. The "Big" came naturally. A significant 
number of the millions of Irish speaking immigrants who came through The Big 
Apple, over the past five hundred years, were bilingual in Irish and 
Hiberno-English.       

+++

The Big Onion is another Irish monicker for NYC.


The Big Onion 
The Big Anonn    (to an ear that hears in English, it sounds like onion)
Anonn  
Over, to the other side. 

Anonn thar abhainn, over, to the other side of, the river.

Anonn go Meiriceá, over to America

Anonn go Bhig Áth  Béil ... came my own family from the Irish Gaeltacht.


I would welcome feedback. These etymologies are part of a project I have just 
completed involving the Irish and Gaelic languages in North America.  I am a 
new list member and the director of the Irish Studies Program at New College 
of California in San Francisco. I am publishing a series of articles this 
spring and summer and would like to correspond with people who have an 
interest in the NYC dialect, particularly the old  north Brooklyn dialect. My 
other native tongue.


Slan agus Beannachtai,


Daniel Cassidy


Director
An Léann Éireannach 
The Irish Studies Program
New College of California
San Francisco