Spassky at a Safe Distance, Issue 12
“Apples, and the Deal With Them”
1: Introduction
2: Spassky’s Senior Speculation
3: Story + Bonus
If a weapon you need
‘Gainst a doct’ral fiend
I know of no worthier fruit,
(Or you wish to gain cheer,
From your teacher and peer,
With scholastic impairments acute).
In culture and phrase
And the Grimm fairy tales
Are these more common than bread;
And why it is so
You will certainly know
Once my text on the apple is read!
2
Newton’s Concussion and Adam’s Inaptly Applely Appetite:
“A Clever Cookie is a Moronic Mango if compared with an Able Apple.” Those who Put Stock in the Old Testament would probably wait to Sell this idea, because (they’d say), “Apples grew, after all, on the Tree of Knowledge, and Adam and Eve discovered nakedness and invented clothes after eating them. Must be cerebral fruit, those apples.”
Somewhere, Somewhen, Someone(s) decided it was unfair that only The Tree of Knowledge’s apples got to be brainy, and – Somehow – apples, from whatever tree their stems stemmed from, became a general symbol for wisdom.
And with all this in mind, the apple’s chronical (chronicle) cameos are going to make much more sense :
“Why are apples teachers’ preferred fruit when strawberries, gooseberries or the noble pear would be just as appreciated?”
The phenomena originated alongside the invention of The Teacher’s Pet, around the 18th century (when knowing how to milk a cow was no longer recognised as a complete education). Giving your teacher an apple, a symbol for wisdom, was just a species of symbolic sucking up. Maybe they’d let you burn a witch after class if you really got on their good side.
“What’s the deal with the Newton and the Apple-Story? It’s not true – and not exactly a thrilling fabrication – so why bother with it?”
The apple striking Newton’s head represents him getting Struck With Inspiration, Inspiration being fancifully represented by the symbol for wisdom – an apple.
As for the apple’s appearances in the Grimm fairy tales, mythologies, and old stories in General (I can’t speak for Corporal or Major, though), the easiest explanation comes from good Old English. “Apple” is an Old English synonym for Fruit – whether Snow White ate a poisoned banana or pomegranate wouldn’t matter, it would be translated into Apple all the same (if the Grimms simply called the fruit Fruit, or Obst. Which they did).
So, a good deal of unidentified fruits in old stories were translated into Old English as apples, and were then assumed to be apples once New English came about, when apples became apples. This is where the whole Apples Grew On the Tree of Life/Knowledge notion comes from; the tree was described as bearing Evil Fruit, that’s it. But the history of that particular misinterpretation is rather an involved one, and makes you grapple with Latin, so I will just leave it there.
The Newer York, and Why It Is Such a Big Apple:
In the 20s (the last one) there was a sports-writer covering horse racing.
He had overheard a group of gamblers debating whether they should go to a profitable race in New York, to The Big Apple there (“Winning the Big Apple” was slang for winning a lot of money. I guess Apples were expensive back then)
The sports-writer liked the ring of the phrase (whether it was an earring or a regular one is lost to history) and started referring to New York as The Big Apple, which led to the readers of his column doing so too.
I suppose it was a candied Big Apple at that, because it was sticky and it stuck.
Dissuading Doctors With the Daily Apple:
Apples are high in Vitamin C, fibres, antioxidants, and are, on the whole, pretty good for you.
The ancient Greeks liked them so much that pelting apples at somebody was not considered attempted (or successful) assault, but a perfectly legitimate ceremony of proposing (or imposing) marriage.
That apples are good for you has been understood for a very long time.
The earliest recorded An Apple a Day rhyme is from 1860, and goes: “Eat an apple on going to bed and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread.”
“An apple a day, no doctor to pay” appeared in the late 19th century, and “An apple a day sends the doctor away” appeared in the early 20th.
The modern recommendation came about in 1922.
I leave you now with a reflection upon the subject of apples, courtesy of Will Hunting, Esquire:
“How do you like them apples?”
3
Story of the Week: The Apple Tree (Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 1902)
Bonus: All About Johnny Appleseed, the Man Who Brought Apples to America