Arthur Bloch’s 1977 bestseller, Murphy’s law and other reasons why things go wrong, included a food joke: “Cole’s Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.” The coleslaw joke is still told.
Wikipedia: Coleslaw
Coleslaw, sometimes simply called slaw in some American dialects, is a type of salad consisting primarily of shredded raw cabbage. It may also include shredded carrots.
Google Books
7 September 1978, New Scientist, pg. 744, col. 1:
Offered as contenders for the great unshakeable list of indisciplinary laws—Sod’s Law, Newton’s Fourth Law of Mtion, the Inverse Midas Touch and their kin—is a list published in SLAC Beam Line, the broadsheet of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Like all such compendia very few make the appropriate rating. Cole’s Law, described as thinly sliced cabbage, is frankly pretty wet;...
Google Books
1,001 logical laws, accurate axioms, profound principles, trusty truisms, homey homilies, colorful corollaries, quotable quotes, and rambunctious ruminations for all walks of life
By John Peers, Gordon Bennett and George Booth
Garden City, NY: Doubleday
1979
Pg. 59:
Cole’s Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.
Google Books
Peter’s people
By Laurence J Peter
New York, NY: Tower
1979
Pg. ?:
COLE’S LAW: Grated cabbage.
Google Books
3 September 1979, New York magazine, pg. 73, col. 1:
Cole’s Law: Thinly sliced cabbage (courtesy The Official Rules).
4 June 1980, Kokomo (IN) Tribune, pg. 1, col. 1:
Today’s Chuckle
Cole’s Law—Thinly sliced cabbage.
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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