Big Onion (Re: The Onion on U.K. slang) (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


> ...
> The Brooklyn Eagle is searchable through 1901, as you know.
> The "Big Onion"
> tour company states that the "Big Onion" nickname applied
> "long before New York  was called the Big Apple." This is not
> true, unsupported by any evidence at  all.

I fully agree that their assertion isn't supported by evidence.
I think it's a big leap to go from there to saying that it isn't true.

Maurer's quote of Blackwell and Sanders is almost certainly not
reflective
of the first usage of "Big Onion" for NYC.  It is much more likely than
not, that whatever prisoner who reported "Big Onion" for NYC was
reporting
usage that was years old.  We don't know how old, though.  If it was
more than
22 years old, then Big Onion predates Big Apple (unless the black stable
hands were using old terms, which is also possible, if not likely).

> ...
> Search for "Big Onion" with "New York" with "nickname."

Given the way that Brooklyn Eagle processes search terms, and the
ubiquity
of the phrase "New York" in a newspaper from there, this would be
functionally
equivalent to searching for "onion" and "nickname".  Searching for "Big
Apple"
and "nickname" would have been fruitless <G> in developing your early
"Big Apple" cites -- "nickname" doesn't appear in them, I belive --
so I don't think the search you used rules out the possibility of "big
onion"
in the Brooklyn Eagle as a nickname.

> ...
> Thanks for the 1942 citation by Maurer, but it's definitely
> post-"Big Apple"--even post the nation-wide phenomenon of
> 1937's "Big Apple"  dance.

As I say above, the cite is 1942, but the usage it reflects is
almost certainly older.

> ...
> The 1978 New York Times "Big Onion" citation is after Charles
>  Gillett's 1970s "Big Apple" campaign. "Big Apple" was a
> popular, re-invented  term in the 1970s. It's a wise remark
> about the onion bagel and nothing  more.

Possibly.
Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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