"Berger" and other Penn State diner lingo (1926)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

The Penn State Collegian has a full digital archive from 1887 to 1940
(including its predecessor, the Free Lance, from 1887 to 1904):

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/historicalcollegian/

A 1926 article on the lingo of a local diner includes "berger" for
"hamburg(er) sandwich".   This antedates the earliest cites for "burger"
(MWCD11 1937, OED2 1939).

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_Penn State Collegian_, Sep. 9, 1926, p. 1, col. 5

"Three Bergers, Draw One, Hat On An Apple"--New Penn State English Course.

A little dictionary expansion is nothing to "Jack" and his worthy
assistants who are coining a new type of chatter for Penn State lads and
lassies at Jerry O'Mahoney's "Get-it-quick" Club Diner.
Jack, the boy who's running the joint for Jerry, is the mint where all the
slang is coined. He's revolutionizing the vernacular of the lunch room.
"Burr' tose," "pitch-pie," "ruz-biff," "scup-cuffy," and "bowl-zupp" have
long since served their turns. They are no more.
At "Jacks" a customer is served not only food but a brand new kind of
chatter that leaves him dumb with amazement. To Jack, a plate of beans is
not a plate of beans at all, it is "a thousand."
"Adam and Eve on a raft," he yells, and, to the customer's surprise,
Morris, his man Friday, slides up two poached eggs on toast.
In a like manner bread and butter is "a set up," toast is "angel food,"
butter is "a chip" and milk is "a glass," a hamburg sandwich is "a
berger."
[etc.]

http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/Repository/PSC/1926/09/09/013-PSC-1926-09-09-001-SINGLE.PDF#OLV0_Entity_0001_0019
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--Ben Zimmer