FYI: "Hot Dog" & "Windy City" in newspapers

Tue Jul 8 06:13:22 UTC 2003

   FYI, more newspaper mangling over the July 4th weekend.
   What have I done to America to deserve this?  How long must this go on?

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HOT DOG

(FACTIVA)
Frankly, kids favor ketchup
Dan Vierria
Sacramento Bee
967 words
2 July 2003
The Cincinnati Post
Final
C1.0
(...)
How the hot dog got its name remains a mystery, although there are several
versions of the story. The most popular one involves baseball. Vendors at the
New York Polo Grounds in 1901 shouted, "They're red-hot! Get your dachshund
sausages while they're red- hot!" A cartoon of barking dachshund sausages tucked
into buns appeared in the New York Journal. Unsure how to spell "dachshund," t
he cartoonist wrote "hot dog!" At least, that's the story. The actual cartoon
has never been found.

(FACTIVA)
HOT DIGGETY DOG ; From best to wurst, the quintessential American food gets
its day in the sun
Sheila Grissett East Jefferson bureau
792 words
4 July 2003
Times-Picayune
01
(...)
Americans have loved their hot dogs for more than a century, said Bruce Kraig
educator, food historian and senior editor of the new Oxford Encyclopedia of
American Food.

It was not only the first portion-controlled food product that could be
easily sold at baseball games, boardwalks, fairs and other community gatherings,
but also it is a humble offering that is readily available.

"We're individuals, we're democratic. No one's better than anyone else, and
the hot dog represents that," Kraig says in an article posted at
www.culinaryhistorians.org. "It's the food of the masses, sold on the streets, sold
everywhere to everyone."

Stories abound as to the hot dog's origins and the etymology of its off-beat
moniker, but separating fact from fiction can be tricky.

What is clear is that the hot dog's ancestors were European sausages, the
German frankfurter and Viennese wiener, brought to America by immigrants in the
mid-1800s and sometimes sold from their pushcarts.

By the turn of the 20th century, thanks to the invention of machinery that
could finely grind meat, Kraig said the new American hot dog was born.

The rest of the story is entertaining, but not so clear .

St. Louis Browns baseball team owner Chris Ahe reportedly was the first to
sell sausages in a ballpark in 1893, but they were still called "Dachshund" or
"little dog" sausages because they resembled the shape of the German-bred dog
by the same name that immigrants brought to the United States.

And it was New York Polo Grounds concessionaire Harry Stevens who gets some
recognition for coining the phrase "red hots." On a cold April day in 1901,
Stevens told his salesmen to walk around the New York Giants' ballpark with
Dachshund sausages floating in hot water tanks yelling "Get your red hot Dachshund
sausages while they last!"

Legend also has it that just a few years later, in the same park, New York
sports cartoonist Tad Dorgan helped make "hot dogs" a part of the American
lexicon by drawing and publishing a cartoon poking fun at Stevens' new walking
concession venture.

According to the story, Dorgan sketched little Dachshund-like puppies nestled
in buns and identified them as "hot dogs" because he couldn't spell
"Dachshund" or "frankfurter."

"The name stuck, but vendors were horrified at the association," according to
Jim Coleman's online Restaurant Report. "At Coney Island, where sausages
meant major revenue, merchants were not allowed to use the term 'hot dog' until
the furor died down years later. But by then, President Franklin Roosevelt had
publicly treated visiting heads of state to hot dogs, and they were firmly
established as America's favorite food."

While some food historians take issue with some of the historical details,
they don't question the place that hot dogs occupy in modern culture.

(FACTIVA)
Local/State
CUMBERLAND CROSSROADS
Hot diggity, the dog days are upon us
ANDREA CICCOCIOPPO
660 words
7 July 2003
Patriot-News
CARLISLE
B01

REALLY, I'M NOT DOGGIN' YOU -- July is National Hot Dog Month.

Statistics show that Americans will eat seven billion hot dogs between
Memorial Day and Labor Day.

On the Fourth of July alone, we collectively consumed approximately 150
million frankfurters.

That's a lot of unidentifiable meat.

Still, I've always wondered why they're called hot dogs.

Apparently, it goes back to 1901, when a sports cartoonist named Tad Dorgan
sketched a cartoon about vendors selling hot dachshund sausages at a ball game
in New York.

His cartoon depicted the sale, but he didn't know how to spell dachshund, so
he referred to them as hot dogs.

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WINDY CITY

(FACTIVA)
Copyright 2003 Time Out Group
Time Out
July 02, 2003
SECTION: Pg. 202
LENGTH: 62 words
HEADLINE: Gust kidding;
LAST WORD
BODY:

Don't believe a word of what Rob Chilton writes.

The true origin of Chicago's nickname 'the Windy City' comes from the
Potawatominickname for a sub-tribe scattered throughout the Illinois area.

The 'Win-Dee' were justly famous, not only for their extravagant eyebrows,
but for their ability to argue endlessly about obscure trivia.

FINTON ROCHDALE, BY EMAIL

LENGTH: 52 words
HEADLINE: Air's fair;
LAST WORD
BODY:

Windy City is to do with politicians' hot air, but Rob Chilton's timing is
way out. It was when the city applied to host the 1893 World's Fair that a
disgruntled New York journalist said that such a windy city would never get the
Fair. They did and never looked back!

MICHAEL PEET & RAYMOND PORT, E3

(FACTIVA)
Copyright 2003 Time Out Group
Time Out
July 02, 2003
SECTION: Pg. 202
LENGTH: 79 words
HEADLINE: Gone with the wind;
LAST WORD
BODY:

As regarding the origins of 'windy city', Rob Chilton (Last Word, TO 1714)
and Neil McLennan (TO 1713) are talking a load of hot air! The nickname is
neither meteorological nor political it was coined by the Irish builders involved
in the building of skyscrapers and refers to the number of windows they had to
put in (Irish pronunciation of 'window' is 'windae'). The locals appropriated
it and thus 'windae city' became 'windy city'.

CAITLIN SMAIL, BY EMAIL

(It's Irish.  Just like "the Big Apple."  "Windae City."  SOMEBODY KILL
ME!--ed.)