Hoagies revisited

[Dave Wilton]

I've written an article on hoagies that should appear in Verbatim some time
in the future.

This NYT article conflates two different origin stories, one clearly false
and one likely true.

The Hog Island shipyard story just doesn't work. The Hog Island shipyard was
a WWI shipyard. It opened in 1917 and was closed by 1925. It was not
operating during the Depression and was closed 20 years before the earliest
known appearance of the word "hoagie" in 1945 (citation found by Mr. Popik).

The Al DePalma story, however, is probably the leading contender for the
origin. DePalma claims to have coined the term "hoggie" for a big sandwich
on an Italian roll when he was a jazz musician in the 1920s. He thought you
had to be a hog to eat one. During the depression DePalma abandoned his
musical career and in 1936 opened up a sandwich shop selling "hoggies." This
form fits Popik's findings--he has found "hoggie" from 1941. It also
parallels the origin of "hero" in deriving its name from a reference to the
sandwich's size. Eames & Robboy (American Speech, 42/4, Dec 67) interviewed
DePalma and tell his story--without using his name, however, referring to
him by his moniker "King of the Hoagies."

The online Labov paper appears to have a typo. It should be "WWII", not
"WWI". The earliest data cited in the paper is from 1945.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Laurence Horn
> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 9:09 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Hoagies revisited
>
>
>  From last Wednesday's NYT Living section cover story on food in
> Philadelphia, a.k.a. "Singapore on the Delaware":
>
> =====================
> The New York Times
> May 28, 2003, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final
>
> SECTION: Section F; Page 1; Column 1; Dining In, Dining Out/Style Desk
>
> HEADLINE: A TASTE OF PHILADELPHIA;
>   In Hoagieland, They Accept No Substitutes
>
>   BYLINE:  By R. W. APPLE Jr.
>
>   DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
> ...
>   According to those who have explored the murky recesses of local
> food history, hoagies owe their name to the Hog Island shipyard on
> the Delaware River. During the Depression, or so the story goes,
> construction workers there used to buy Italian sandwiches from a
> luncheonette operated by one Al DePalma, who called them "hoggies."
> Time changed the name to hoagies.
>
>   Hoagies are not fundamentally different from New York's heroes or
> Boston's grinders or Everytown's submarines. Call them what you like,
> but Philadelphia must eat more per capita than anyplace else, and in
> a city where almost everybody, including Wawa convenience stores,
> fills eight-inch-long bread rolls with cold cuts, South Philadelphia
> fills them better than anyone.
>
>   The bread is the key to quality. So who better to make a great
> hoagie than a great bakery? That would be Sarcone's, a fixture on
> Ninth Street, which a few years ago opened a tiny deli a few doors
> away. Its Old Fashioned Italian (Gourmet) hoagie is a minor
> masterpiece. A roll with a crunchy seeded crust and a soft, yet
> densely chewy, interior provides a solid base with plenty of
> absorptive power. Both are sorely needed after they pile on the
> prosciutto, coppa, spicy sopressata, provolone, oregano, tomatoes,
> onions, hot peppers, oil and vinegar.
>
> ...
> ==================================
>
> Well, Sarcone's hoagies sound great, even though the etymology may be
> a bit suspect.  I can't remember what we had for this, if anything.
> AHD4 gives "alteration of _hoggy_"  Various online resources have
> various suggestions, including some that concur with Apple's:
> ===========
> Hoagie came from the name of a shipyard along the East coast that
> made submarines for WWII and so the long "subs" in that region became
> hoagies.
> ==========
> Interestingly, one such internet source is a paper of Labov's, in
> which he (oops, looks like a possessive antecedent!) comments
> ==========
> The sandwich called hoagie originated in Philadelphia in sandwich and
> ice cream shops, along with the Philadelphia steak sandwich or
> cheesesteak. Early telephone listings show that it became generalized
> in Philadelphia shortly after World War I, as shown in Table 4. The
> various
> spellings have been cited many times by those searching for the
> etymology of this term, but it is evident that by 1955, it had become
> focused on hoagie or hoagy.
>
> Is there anyone on the list who can come up with evidence for an
> actual etymology?  Just curious.  (The article also mentions the
> existence of a "Vietnamese hoagie" but doesn't provide a list of
> ingredients.)
>
> Larry
>