Here's a quick sampling of the headlines various news organizations used to describe Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) quarterly results which sent the stock down:

• Apple's Rotten Report Scares Street (Wall Street Journal)
• Apple Bruised by Rotten Start for iPhone 3G (IndyStar)
• Apple's Bite (Portfolio)
• Weak Forecast Takes a Bite From Apple (TheStreet.com)
• Apple stock feels bite despite third-quarter profit (London Free Press)

But the king of Apple metaphors was SmartMoney, which went with the headline "Investors Sour on Apple After Tepid Forecast" -- and then, still not satisfied, went back for more: "Investors took a chunk out of Apple." And yet more: "There's nothing rotten about Apple's prospects . . ."

All of this would be forgivable if Apple were a new company. But it's been around since 1976 and I'd be willing to bet that every quarterly earnings release since its IPO in 1984 has been greeted with increasingly tiresome references to the pomaceous fruit after which the company is named.

Can't we just let it go? Does anyone think they're being remotely clever when they make references to the fact that an apple is a piece of fruit?