[Ads-l] bite at the apple

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is a description of a game presented in a magazine for children
in 1880 in which a partially restrained participant attempts to bite
an apple. Bobbing for apples is another game that involves attempting
to bite apples. Yet, bobbing for apples typically involves many
apples.

I am posting this to provide background and one possible explanation
for the figurative language.

Periodical: St. Nicholas: For Girls and Boys
Date: June 1880
Section: The Letter-Box
Quote Page 678
Publisher: Scribner & Company, New York

[Begin excerpt]
Dear St. Nicholas: I have an amusing game for rainy days, called Apple
Dumplings. Take a stout cord; stretch it from one side of the room to
the other, tying it so that it will not come loose. It has to be about
an arm's length above your head. Take a large apple; punch a hole
through it, so that it will not be too large for a string to be put
through; tie a small piece of wood to the end that is through the
apple, so that the string will not come out; then tie the other end to
the cord, so that the apple will hang even with your mouth. Ask some
one to tie your hands behind you, and then try to bite the apple. This
was tried at the Opera House. A dollar was offered to the one that
first should bite the apple. G. H.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 3:52 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Not in OED:
>
> 'Opportunity to accomplish one's (often unfair) aim'
>
> Prominent Tweeter today:
>
> "Highly conflicted Robert Mueller should not be given another bite at the
> apple."
>
> 1920 _Christian Science Monitor_ (March 31) 8: A Bite at the Apple   While
> fully appreciating the desire of the employers to take one bite at the
> apple, to settle the vexed problem on a national basis and with a universal
> standard ....
>
> 1963  _The [Baltimore] Sun_ (Apr. 25) 48: Mr. Sweeney argued that the
> intent of the election laws is "to give a man only one bite at the apple,
> and said a Kentucky decision held that to permit a defeated candidate to
> become a nominee of a political party "is not consonant with good faith and
> fair dealing."
>
> Etc., etc.
>
> JL
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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