Further Antedating of "Hot Dog" (Corrected Citation)

[Shapiro, Fred]

I have previously pushed back the first use of "hot dog" meaning a frankfurter back to a New Jersey newspaper in May 1893.  Here is a slightly earlier citation from Newspaperarchive.  The provenance of earliest known usage of this term now has shifted from Yale to Harvard.


WHY HARVARD MEN GET INDIGESTION.

Frightful and Wonderful Mixtures They Eat and Drink at Night.

HOT DOG SEEMS TO BE A FAVORITE DISH.

...

The annual report of Dr. Bailey, the medical adviser of Harvard, which was published a few days ago, showed conclusively that the Crimston [sic] students, in spite of their athletics, suffer in large numbers from the diseases that are common to mankind. ... There was one class of persons who did not wonder that Harvard students had indigestion.  They were the restaurant-keepers in and about Harvard Square.  They are the ones who supply food to the collegians between meals and in the small hours of the morning. ... "I don't wonder that they have indigestion," said Butler, the jovial hot dog merchant at the Harvard Union, when asked if he could explain the reason for so many complaints.  "You ought to see," he went on to say, "the stuff some of the men eat. ... I know one man who has three square meals a day, and as regular as the nights come around he is here at about 10 o'clock for a lunch.  Here's what he has: Two hot dogs to start with; then a half of an apple pie with whi!
 pped cream on top; a couple of chicken sandwiches, a cup of hot [indecipherable word], then a vanilla eclair, a gloass of orangeade and to cap the climax a hard boiled egg.  That takes the cake for quantity, but some of the customers are worse than that.  When a man drinks a soda lemonade, a glass of milk, and a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream, besides eclairs and frankfurters, I don't wonder he has indigestion.  But one of the sweetest mixtures is a pineapple and strawberry milk shake, which ought to cause insomnia or indigestion when you consider that in addition, they eat a whole pie,l tow or three sandwiches and perhaps drink lemonade to wind up with."

New York World, Mar. 16, 1893, page 4, column 4 (Newspaperarchive)


Fred Shapiro
Editor
YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)

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