Slipperspoon; NYPL & Big Apple Fest; Google's "similar pages"

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 2, 2004, at 10:11 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bapopik at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Slipperspoon; NYPL & Big Apple Fest; Google's "similar
> pages"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> SLIPPERSPOON or SLIPPER SPOON
>
> DARE ends on "sk."
>
> (JSTOR)
> The Lexical Method as a Significant Factor in Vocabulary Fixation (in
> Round Table)
> Norman V. McCullough
> College English, Vol. 24, No. 2. (Nov., 1962), pp. 144-146.
> Pg. 145: ...it was discovered that in the southern American English
> area _slipper spoon_ was preferred by around 41.4% of the informants;
> _show slipper_ by 13.1%; _shoe horn_ by 37.6%; _shoe spoon_ by 5.9%;
> and _slipper horn_ by less than 1%.
>
>
> (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM)
>   Decatur Review  Tuesday, November 29, 1921 Decatur, Illinois
> ...cuticle knife, nail file, buffer, SLIPPER SPOON, jewel case, cloth
> brush..
>
>   Decatur Review  Thursday, December 15, 1921 Decatur, Illinois
> ...knife, cream jar, nail file, buffer, SLIPPER SPOON, jewel case,
> cloth brush..
>
>  Thursday, January 04, 1923 Decatur, Illinois
> ...Hook. Ivory Cuticle Knife, a Handy SLIPPER SPOON. This set usually
> sells..
>
>   Decatur Review  Friday, June 11, 1926 Decatur, Illinois
> ...Saws made of anold knife and of a SLIPPER SPOON were found
> concealed. The..
>

Thanks, Barry! Never having seen the term written down before, I didn't
know whether to spell it as as one word or as two. Now, I know!

-Wilson

> --------------------------------------------------------------
> NYPL & BIG APPLE FEST
>
> More on the neverending, completely thankless saga.
>
>
> BIG APPLE FEST--After my NY Times article came out at the end of
> August, I wrote to the Big Apple Fest to remove the whore hoax from
> its web page. No response. So I wrote to the Public Advocate. Why is
> our tourism bureau doing this? No response. Finally, the Public
> Advocate got a Big Apple Fest response yesterday. In another
> development, www.bigapplefest.org appears to be off the web:
>
> We have received the following e-mail from the Big Apple Fest in
> response to your e-mail.
>
> "The Big Apple Fest has no position on which story is accurate as to
> how New York got it’s (sic) name The Big Apple.  We have listed
> stories that appeared in New York Encyclopedia and the Society for New
> York City History.  These accounts are on our website as a topic for
> discussion only."
>
> Jon Clay
> Managing Director
> Big Apple Fest
>
> I hope this answers your concerns.  Thank you for contacting the
> Public Advocate.
>
> Alethia Mays
> Office of the Public Advocate
> Ombudsman Services
> 212-669-4301
> amays at pubadvocate.nyc.gov
> ombudsman at pubadvocate.nyc.gov
>
> (The Toronto Globe & Mail had said, in August, that the Big Apple Fest
> "stood by" the whore story. Now it's a "topic for discussion." Too bad
> the Big Apple Fest site is down so we can't "discuss"--ed.)
>
>
> NYPL--The last New York City organization to recognize that "the Big
> Apple" was solved in the New York Public Library remains the NYPL.
> Earlier this year, the whore hoax was removed from the NYPL's (branch
> libraries) "Best of the Web." My web site is now there.
>
> The pathetic NYPL Research Library web page is still there, but the
> branch library's links have now been placed on the Research Library's
> definition. I recognized the slight change from a web site "referrer"
> hit today:
>
> http://www.nypl.org/branch/manhattan/index2.cfm?Trg=1&d1=865
> Why is New York City called the Big Apple?
> Alternate explanations from Barry Popik and the Gotham Center for New
> York City History.
>
>
> http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/faq.html
> How did New York City come to be known as "The Big Apple"?
>
> Alternate explanations from Barry Popik and the Gotham Center for New
> York City History.
>
> There is no single, authoritative answer as to why New York City is
> known as The Big Apple. That the term is now widely known may be due
> to a tourism publicity campaign launched by the New York Convention
> and Visitors Bureau in 1971.
>
>  Certainly, the term was used before that. The most recent research
> traces the phrase back to a book published in 1909. In a New York
> Times article of February 1, 1989, David Shulman refers to The
> Wayfarer in New York, a collection of essays edited by Edward S.
> Martin. On page xiv of that book, Mr. Martin wrote that the rest of
> the country "inclines to think the big apple gets a disproportionate
> share of the national sap." This is the earliest use of the term yet
> brought to our attention.
>
>  Previously, the phrase had been linked to jazz slang, or to the
> popular dance named the Big Apple. The Dictionary of American Slang
> (Wentworth and Flexner) and The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase
> Origins both trace the phrase in this way, but this only takes it back
> as far as the 1930s.
>
>  John Ciardi (New York Times, 7/19/89) relates the phrase to the
> Spanish term "manzana principal," which denotes a city's main section.
> He goes on to say: "Translated as Big Apple by New Orleans jazzmen
> around 1900 with the sense "the bit time," the idiom passed into show
> bizz..."
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> OT: GOOGLE'S "SIMILAR PAGES"
>
> I checked Google's "similar pages" for my web site,
> www.barrypopik.com. Maybe someone can explain to me how these appear?
>
> Star Wars: Episode III | Special Announcement: Episode III Title
> Publicity, ...
> www.starwars.com/episode-iii/ bts/production/news20040724.html - 82k -
> Cached - Similar pages
>
> LeafySeadragon: Cetacean Human Network
> Article. LeafySeadragon: Cetacean Human Network. Print-friendly
> VersionPrint-
> friendly Version. By Dana Nourie with Serge Masse, July 2004, ...
> java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/JavaLP/leafy/ - 36k - Cached
> - Similar pages
>
>
> But what could be more similar to a New York City web site than Word
> Detective (Evan Morris) kittens?
>
> kittens
> evanmorris.com a day in the so-called life. other photos. Harry. Gus.
> Harry and
> Phoebe order cat food online. Phoebe waiting for her agent to return
> her call. ...
> www.evanmorris.com/kittens.html - 4k - Cached - Similar pages
>