Barry Popik

Barry Popik (born 1961) is an American etymologist who is recognized as an expert on the origins of the terms "Big Apple", "Windy City", "hot dog", and many other food and slang terms; he is a consulting editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America and was described in The Wall Street Journal as "the restless genius of American etymology".

Etymology career

Popik is a contributor-consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary of American Regional English, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, and The Yale Book of Quotations. He is recognized as an expert on the origins of the terms "Big Apple", "Windy City", "hot dog", and many other food and slang terms; he is a consulting editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed Zotti described him in The Wall Street Journal as "the restless genius of American etymology".

Popik's theory on the etymology of Big Apple—that it was first popularized in the 1920s by sports writer John J. Fitz Gerald—led to the New York City street corner where Fitz Gerald lived being renamed "Big Apple Corner".