To the editor:
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Cecil Adams featured some of my work in two recent columns of the Straight Dope [September 17 and 24]. In May 1999 Rick Kogan did a story for the Chicago Tribune magazine about the origin of the “Windy City.” He again quoted the story that New York was competing with Chicago for the World’s Fair (Chicago held it in 1893), and that Charles A. Dana of the New York Sun first used the phrase to disparage Chicago.
I wrote to Rick Kogan, the letters column, and another Tribune editor anyway. I told them that the American Name Society is meeting in Chicago this December–it was before this group that I presented my work on the “Big Apple.” Unless the Chicago Tribune apologized to me, I would not lecture at the meeting this December (keep in mind, I get no money and I pay my own expenses when I do these things). I would also never go to Chicago again.
I will not lecture about your city’s nickname this December. I will not go to Chicago ever again. You have humiliated your most devoted visitor!
