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

[Wilson Gray]

I once asked an Australian friend whether she could use a wallet-sized
calendar. She confusedly replied, "Well, you just look at it, don't
you?" Apparently, in Australian English, "can you use ...?" can not
include the meaning, "do you  have a use for ...?"

But, to answer your question, a "wienie" is (was?) relatively long and
slender. So, if you went to FootLong, "Down on Sarah Street" (the
title of an obscure-to-non-black-Saint-Louisans blues), you got a "hot
dog" made with a wienie about as thick as a man's thumb and literally
a foot long.

OTOH, a "frank(furter) sangwich" was made with a hot-dog bun, but it
contained a shorter (even than a regular wienie, let alone a
foot-long), somewhat thicker sausage like unto a Hebrew National
frankfurter or a German bratwurst or such like.

That is, the gourmand could tell them apart just by looking at them.

At that time, in that place, the frank sangwich was generally more
popular amongst the colored than the ordinary hot dog, but not for any
special reason that I know of. It was just local custom. Indeed, the
same may even have been true of the local white population, but
segregation generally prevented whites and blacks from eating together
in public places.

-Wilson

-Wilson

On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "hot dog" T.A. Dorgan story in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
>              (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> In 1901, the name "hot dog" began to overtake "frankfurter,"
>>> "red hot," "dachshund," "frank" and "wiener."
>>
>> Not quite, among the black Saint Louisans of my youth, for whom
>> "frankfurters" and "wienies" were distinct
>
> Indeed?! How, pray tell?
>
> --
> Mark Mandel
>
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