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Dec 13, 2021
This week’s themeFruits This week’s words apple knocker banana oil razz sour grapes peachy 
A literal apple knocker
Photo: Michael Fairchild 
A different kind of apple knocker
Photo: Erik Norvelle Previous week’s theme Illustrated words 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargA pomegranate is a seedy apple, literally speaking. I said literally. Not trying to denigrate the pomegranate, an upright member of the fruit family, named from Latin pomum (apple) + granum (seed). The pomegranate is a hard-working fruit. It has given us much. We got the word grenade from French grenade, which got it from Spanish granada. In both languages the words mean both a pomegranate and a grenade. The deep-red gem garnet is also named after the pomegranate. That’s a behind-the-scenes peek of what I have gathered from our word gardens lately. So this week’s menu is all fruit. We’re doing our part to keep your vocabulary fit and perky. Now it’s time for a question. An apple knocker knocks them down, but how does a playwright get his fruit? He shakes pear. apple knocker
PRONUNCIATION:
(AP-uhl nok-uhr)
MEANING:
noun: 1. An ignorant or unsophisticated person. 2. A baseball player, especially a batter. 3. A fruit picker, farmer, or seller. ETYMOLOGY:
1. From the stereotypical view of those working in the field as boorish or naive. 2. From the jocular reference to a baseball as an apple. 3. From the image of someone picking apples by knocking them down with a stick. Earliest documented use: 1902. NOTES:
In the term apple knocker, a baseball has been compared to an apple.
In the past, those balls were even made in red color. And a ballpark is
also called an apple orchard probably because that’s where the game was
often played. So it figures that a batter is an apple knocker. Baseball
players will continue knocking the apple with a bat, but fruit picking is
going high-tech. Here in Washington state, we grow apples and many other
fruits and a robotics arm race is going on to develop automated fruit pickers. In the future, we may need to amend
the definition of the term apple knocker. Instead, an apple knocker may
be someone working with drones
and robots.
USAGE:
“Look, just because I live on a tobacco farm doesn’t mean I’m some
apple-knocker.” Harper Lin; Scandals in Savannah; Harper Lin Books; 2020. “That big apple knocker out there on the mound is batting ninth now on my card.” Philip Roth; The Great American Novel; Holt; 1973. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule
to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in
cases where it does not fit, is pedantry ... To apply a rule with natural
ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever
letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the
opportunities of the situation, is mastery. -George Polya, mathematician
(13 Dec 1887-1985)
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