[00:00.10]Now, the VOA Special English program
[00:16.39]Words and Their Stories.
[00:19.42]Today we tell about the expression
[00:22.66]"apple pie order."
[00:25.70]It means "in perfect order, very well organized."
[00:31.42]Nobody is sure where and when the expression
[00:37.34]"apple pie order" began.
[00:39.93]Some say that Scottish and English writers
[00:44.01]used the expression a long time ago.
[00:48.05]Others say it first was used
[00:51.14]in the northeastern American states known as New England.
[00:56.81]The housewives of New England cut their apples in even slices.
[01:03.44]Then they filled pie pans with them
[01:07.07]in an organized way, row upon row.
[01:10.90]As one writer said, the women of New England
[01:15.84]loved to have everything in its place.
[01:19.17]This perhaps explains why it generally
[01:23.20]is believed that the expression
[01:25.60]"apple pie order" began in New England.
[01:30.63]Another old expression describes the opposite condition
[01:35.61]-- wild disorder.
[01:38.05]That expression is apple of discord.
[01:42.58]It comes from ancient mythology.
[01:45.92]The myth says that all the gods and goddesses
[01:50.76]were sitting around the table
[01:52.65]to celebrate the marriage of Thetis and Peleus.
[01:56.39]One of the goddesses -- Discord -- was a troublemaker.
[02:01.12]She threw a golden apple on the table to be given
[02:05.55]as a prize to the most beautiful goddess.
[02:09.19]It was not an easy decision to make.
[02:12.97]How could they choose among Juno, Minerva and Venus.
[02:19.19]Paris was given the task of deciding.
[02:23.38]He decided to give the golden apple to Venus.
[02:29.15]Juno and Minerva were very angry and threatened him.
[02:34.14]This, the myth says, began the long Trojan war.
[02:40.11]At one time, the tomato was called a love apple.
[02:46.69]That was a mistake. This is how the mistake happened:
[02:52.46]In the sixteenth century, Spain imported the tomato
[02:57.90]from South America after Spanish explorers had landed there.
[03:02.78]Spain then exported the tomato to Morocco.
[03:07.25]Italian traders carried it on to Italy.
[03:12.59]The Italian name for the tomato
[03:15.92]was "pomo di Moro" -- apple of the Moors.
[03:20.40]When French growers imported it from Italy,
[03:25.89]they thought "di Moro" meant "d'amour"
[03:29.77]-- the French word for love.
[03:32.01]And so "pomo di Moro" became the apple of love.
[03:38.74]People believe many things about the apple.
[03:43.17]One belief is that it has great powers of
[03:47.90]keeping people healthy.
[03:50.04]A very common expression is
[03:52.88]"an apple a day keeps the doctor away."
[03:57.87]Another belief is based on fact.
[04:02.59]The expression is "one rotten apple spoils the barrel."
[04:09.22]When an apple begins to go bad,
[04:12.41]it ruins all the other apples around it in the container.
[04:17.48]The expression has come to mean
[04:20.37]that one bad person in a group
[04:23.16]can cause everyone to act bad.
[04:27.00][Music]
[04:37.27]You have been listening to the VOA
[04:41.51]Special English program Words and Their Stories.
[04:46.24]I'm Warren Scheer.