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The big apple

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Uniquerob13 | 15:43 Fri 16th Sep 2005 | History
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Does anybody know why New York is known as the Big Apple?
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There's a suggestion here - might be a bit risqu� though!

http://salwen.com/apple.html

I believe this may be true. I can remember the advertising campaign from the 70's and I think it stems from this

Big Apple
This name for New York City was originally horse-racing slang that made its way into jazz lingo and eventually into the vernacular.
The term dates to 1921 and is a reference to the race courses in and around New York City. These were the big money courses, and the "apple" is associated with a prize, something desirable. By the late 1920s, the term had been adopted by jazz musicians and generalized to the city as a whole. A tourism advertising campaign in the 1970s that used the term as a theme reinvigorated usage and brought the name to the attention of millions who had not otherwise heard it.

There is also a single 1909 use of the term, but this is probably unrelated to the later uses.

I always thought it was because everybody is supposedly tempted to go there. Apples are usually associated with desire or temtation, aren't they? So everybody is attracted to the big city - the Big Apple.
Rio de Janerio is also known as the Big Apple.

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