down the middle or across

[Peter A. McGraw]

I agree with Doug that cutting a sandwich horizontally (so the top half is
rounded and the bottom half is squared off) would be weird.  When I was a
kid my Dad always cut sandwiches down the middle vertically (so the two
halves were symmetrical).  We didn't have any particular word for that, but
Mom always cut them "catty-cornered" (not "diagonally").

Peter Mc.

--On Thursday, July 22, 2004 3:25 PM -0400 Beverly Flanigan
<flanigan at OHIOU.EDU> wrote:

> No, no--we always cut sandwiches horizontally when I was a kid!  But when
> I got older, I learned it was more "proper" to cut diagonally (I never
> called that "across").
>
> At 03:01 PM 7/22/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>> Cutting the sandwich across would definitely mean cutting it diagonally.
>> And, fwiw, cutting it through the *other* (horizontal) middle seems very
>> very freaky to me.  I would not eat that sandwich.  And I have no words
>> to describe how such a sandwich is cut.  Just.... wrong.
>>
>> -dsb
>> Douglas S. Bigham
>> Department of Linguistics
>> University of Texas - Austin
>> http://hometown.aol.com/capn002/myhomepage/index.html



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************