How *do* you like them apples?

[Kythereia]

So I was walking down the street today, to get the bus, and I saw the headline in the local newspaper about the Bosox beating the Yankees.

My first thought: “Heh heh… how do you like them apples? :p”

My second thought: "…What a weird turn of phrase. "
So, where did this saying come from?

[bordelond]

First time I ever heard that expression was in the movie Good Will Hunting.

I’m betting it’s something the screenwriters, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, grew up with in Boston.

[Roches]

I heard it long before Good Will Hunting. It was the sort of thing my grandparents would’ve said, and it was probably common around 50 years ago. Unfortunately, the origin of common phrases is a field rife with made-up origins. (I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a claim that APPLES stands for something.) I wouldn’t trust an origin story unless there’s an attestation of the phrase somewhere reputable like the OED, or unless Shakespeare wrote:

‘So I ask you, good Sir, forsooth, tell me
If these apples are meet to thee, and sweet,’

Or something like that.

Another post I’d like to see show up later on in urban legend form… =)

[Xgemina]

Like Roches, I heard this phrase long before Good Will Hunting. I always thought of it as a kind of one-upmanship type of deal. “Yeah, you got me, but I got you back…how do you like that!”

Looking around on the web (waiting for samclem to get here with the definitive etymology) I found this website, http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss.asp?Num=3348. The 2nd responder, Ken G., seems to have the best answer…the best researched by far.

Chapman’s Dictionary of American Slang

HOW DO YOU LIKE (or HOW ABOUT) THEM APPLES interjection by 1940s An exclamation of pleasure and triumph, usually inviting admiration for something one has done or acquired: How do you like them apples, huh, Ma!—Robert B. Parker/ ‘How about them apples, Goodman?—Stan Cutler

American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms

HOW ABOUT THAT? Isn’t that surprising, remarkable, or pleasing. For example, ‘They’re engaged—how about that?’ [colloquial; first half of 1900s]

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Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang

HOW ABOUT THAT?THAT THEN? Phrase [1930s and still in use] an interrogative phrase calling for agreement that something is worthy of praise or approval.

[samclem]

I’m sure we’ve done this before, but too lazy to search.

There exists a 1926 cite for “How do you like them grapes!” used in the same manner.

So, the idea goes back at least that far.

Why apples? Don’t know.

[burkeb]

Maybe it came from the grapes saying… which in turn might have come from the “Sour Grapes” saying. Might be a bit of a stretch, but I’ve heard stretchier histories proven true

[Colophon]

My Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang says that the “apples” version dates from the 1920s, from the USA:

**How do you like them ** or those apples? An ironic or rhetorical question: “What do you think about that, and what are you going to do about it?” The implication being that, whatever the recipient thinks about it, he or she can do nothing.

Quote not exactly verbatim but that is the gist.

[LateComer]

Just wanted to add that my dad, who was born in 1941 and lived his entire life in Pittsburgh (with the exception of 2 years he spent in Germany in the early sixties in the Army) used that phrase a lot. I use it too, but only when using Homer Simpson’s “In your face Flanders!” would be inappropriate.