Why is a college student in her second year referred to as a “sophomore”?
After her first, or “freshman,” year, a college student is called a “sophomore,” and has been since the description emerged at Cambridge in 1688. The word is constructed from the Greek sophos, meaning wise, and moros, meaning foolish. So a second-year student is somewhere between ignorance and wisdom. Similarly, when we say something is “sophomoric,” we mean it is pretentious or foolish. Read the rest of this entry »
Why do we call New York the “The Big Apple?”
During the 1940s, Robert Emmerich, who played piano in the Tommy Dorsey Band, wrote an obscure song called “The Big Apple.” It was soon forgotten by everyone except legendary reporter Walter Winchell, who liked the song so much that in his daily column and on the air he began referring to his beat, New York City, as “The Big Apple,” and soon, even though Emmerich’s song was long forgotten, its title became the great city’s nickname. Read the rest of this entry »
