Scott Berinato looked at the Nexis database to find the evolution of the expression "apples and oranges" in the media. You might think it's not technologically related, but wait a minute.
The phrase took off in the business world around the mid-'90s when the Nasdaq composite took off (see charts below), and so did the number of business publications where the term might appear, such as Business Times Singapore and the Wichita Business Journal, and websites like TheStreet.com. But it was also found in the heavyweights like The Financial Times. It's not surprising. Business is statistics, trends and the comparison of statistics and trends. Executives use apples and oranges to avoid talking about unpleasant truths that might be exposed when an economic indicator indicates the wrong trend.
And now, take a look at the two following charts comparing the evolution of the use of "apples and oranges" in the media with the rise of the Nasdaq index. They're almost identical.
Or read this other comment:
The use of apples/oranges peaked in the six-month period between October 1999 and March 2000, when it was cited in Nexis 1,713 times. During the same six-month stretch, the Nasdaq composite rose from 2,736 and change to about 4,573. When the Nasdaq fell in 2001, so did use of the phrase. Nasdaq is down again this year, and apples to oranges use is projected to fall again too, to about 2,500.
Source: Scott Berinato, Darwin Magazine, May 2002
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