"hot dog" T.A. Dorgan story in St. Louis Post-Dispatch (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

The Post Dispatch made the same mistake in 2006 ("HOT CORNER" St. Louis
Post-Dispatch (MO) - July 30, 2006
Author: DERRICK GOOLD, p. D7); likewise The Bangor ME Daily News ("This
month, we celebrate the hot dog" Bangor Daily News (ME) - July 13, 2006
TOM WEBER: p. B1); Portland Oregonian ("NEWS Q&A - I have always
wondered how hot dogs got such an odd name" Oregonian, The (Portland,
OR) - July 4, 2006 p. A01); Palm Springs Desert Sun ("The All-American
dog - well, sort of" Desert Sun, The (Palm Springs, CA) - April 13, 2006
Author: The Desert Sun, Staff p. P11); San Diego Union Tribune ("Babe
not alone in his love of hot dogs" San Diego Union-Tribune, The (CA) -
November 26, 2005 Author: Don Freeman p. E-9), and a bunch of other
newspapers in Newsbank.

Gerry, and others -- do you want an electronic copy of the 2004 article
you mention below?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Cohen, Gerald Leonard
> Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 9:13 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "hot dog" T.A. Dorgan story in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> Subject:      "hot dog" T.A. Dorgan story in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> The T.A. Dorgan story on "hot dog" continues unabated.  The
> usually excellent St. Louis Post-Dispatch presents this story
> today as possibly being accurate, which is equivalent to
> giving credence to the views of the flat-earth society.
> There's no possibility that the T.A. Dorgan story is
> accurate. None. zero.
>
>   My thanks to Barry Popik for e-mailing me the two links
> below--the first is a St Louis Post-Dispatch story on the
> "hot dog" book that Barry Popik, the late David Shulman, and
> I published in 2004.  The second one is today's story in the
> St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  If its author (Anthony Hagan) is
> ever curious about what really happened, he need only ask.
>
>       Meanwhile, on a general note, the T.A. Dorgan Polo
> Grounds hot-dog story shows the persistence of a folk
> etymology in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the
> contrary.  It's such a good story, why give it up merely
> because it's been disproven?
>
>       As for the two links, they're given below my signoff.
>
> Gerald Cohen
> P.S. The incorrect T. A. Dorgan story is about a baseball
> game at the POLO GROUNDS.  It wasn't about a polo match, as
> Hagan writes. But, hey, as long as facts don't matter, why
> sweat these details?
>
> [Two "hot dog" links]:
> ...
> Word sleuths dig up true origin of the term "hot dog"
> <http://docs.newsbank.com/g/GooglePM/SL/lib00170,1073CC625FF3B
> 5E2.html>
>
> $2.95 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - NewsBank - Dec 26, 2004 ...
> was a staple of humor in the 19th century and in the 20th,"
> says Gerald Cohen, ... As a part of speech, hot dog has had
> legs. Cohen and colleagues also ...
> ...
> ...
> http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/cooking
> /story/BB2F537BBBB32657862574780066563C?OpenDocument
> Hot dogs has evolved into an all-American favorite By Anthony
> Hagan ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
> 07/02/2008
>
> <snip>
>
> In 1901, the name "hot dog" began to overtake "frankfurter,"
> "red hot," "dachshund," "frank" and "wiener." The story goes
> that Tad Dorgan, a New York Journal sports cartoonist, was
> attending a polo match on a blustery April day when he
> noticed vendors selling sausages kept hot in portable water
> tanks. The vendors were shouting: "They're red hot! Get your
> dachshund sausages while they're red hot!"
>
> Dorgan quickly drew a sketch of the scene, and not knowing
> how to spell dachshund, he called them "hot dogs."
>
> However, historians cannot locate the cartoon that supposedly
> coined the phrase. Others say the term was originated when
> Yale's student newspaper wrote about "dog wagons" selling hot
> dogs in fall 1894.
>
> <snip>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org