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

[Barry Popik]

In a message dated 11/21/2007 2:11:29 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL writes:
[note:  The NYT
store offers a photo
of the Jewish Lower East Side, ca. 1910, with the note:  "A
predominately Jewish area,
this section of New York was often known as the Big Onion."  Perhaps the
origin is from the
Jewish immigrant community?]
...
...
A few more points. This was written by some idiot for the NYT website.
It is not evidence. Probably, the person had taken a "Big Onion" tour
and believed the garbage associated with that tour group's name,
something Big Onion Tours couldn't document to me with a single
citation.
...
...
>This citation doesn't predate your 1920's references to The Big
Apple, but given that the
>source describes a poorly-documented area of speech [criminal slang],
I doubt it makes >sense to definitively say that "The Big Apple"
predates "The Big Onion" -- only
>that as far as the current printed record is researched, citations
for "The Big Apple" predate
>those for "The Big Onion".
...
...
Criminal slang is NOT "poorly documented." It's well documented. We
have criminal slang lists and criminal slang books. We have criminal
slang articles in American Speech. There's no entry for "big onion" in
the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, and do you know why there
isn't? It's because Jon Lighter is a poor scholar. It's because Jon
Lighter is a lazy bum. It's because "big onion" was a spoken term and
the numerous criminal slang chroniclers were all in collusion not to
write it down before 1940. That's why we don't have the cites! This is
all ridiculous.
...
...
>> 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.
...
...
Bill Mullins, how can you argue out of both sides of your mouth? The
Lower East Side was "often known as the Big Onion" (NY Times Store
photo caption) and "New York was called the Big Onion long before it
was called the Big Apple" (Big Onion Tours), but the fact that we
haven't found a single relevant citation before 1940 is because, well,
those millions of digitized pages just must be off, or we just didn't
look hard enough!
...
Let's look at Chronicling America, a research tool that I just didn't
have in 2004. From 1900-1910, we have the NY Evening World, NY Sun,
and NY Tribune. Taken together with the digitized NY Times, I'd say
our coverage of NYC is pretty darn good here.
...
There are 13 results for "big onion." Not one citation is relevant.
...
So we have NOT ONE citation that "long before NYC was called the Big
Apple, it was called the Big Onion," but Bill Mullins says "I think
it's a big leap to go from there to saying that it isn't true." BIG
LEAP? WHEN THERE'S NO EVIDENCE AT ALL??
...
As I said, I probably made one penny on this entry. No kidding. One
goddamn penny. And solving "the Big Apple" led to me losing thousands
of dollars, years of my life, and a complete loss of human dignity in
doing a public service for the city that I once called home.
...
I give up. Believe whatever you want.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org