An early "hot dog"/non-college(1897)

[Sam Clements]

Ancestry strikes again.  Barry, of course, has dibs on the origin of "hot
dog" from college slang in 1895.

But I found a non-college(I think) cite from the Middletown(NY) Daily Argus,
May 27, 1897.  page (not readable), col. 4.

<"Jakey" Newmark, proprietor the the portable lunch business which has been
a familiar landmark on East Main street the past year or so, received all
sorts of consolation, Tuesday night, from the bicycle boys who frequent his
place.  "Jakey" says he didn't pay the $100 license imposed by the Common
Council because he was advised not to do so by an official high in authority
at that time.  "Jakey's" opponents are restaurant men, who claim that men
frequent the "hot dog wagon" who formerly patronized them, and a consequent
falling off in their business has resulted.  That "Jakey" should pay a
good-sized license if allowed to use the highway is the sense of most
Middletowners.>

I asked Gerald Cohen if this was early for a non-college cite, and his reply
is reproduced below.  Evidently it is the first non-college usage.

SC


From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at umr.edu>
To: "Sam Clements" <sclements at neo.rr.com>
Cc: <Bapopik at aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 10:25 PM
Subject: RE: "hot dog wagon" (1897)


> Sam,
>    This looks significant. The earliest evidence I have thus far for "hot
dog" outside of a college context is 1898 (in the Hull Beacon newspaper of
Nantasket Beach)--article by Dennis R. Means in Comments on Etymology, April
1998, pp. 2-4.  Your 1897 attestation antedates this by a year.
>
> Best. --- Jerry