hot dog article in NY Times

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Message from Brian Hitchcock, Fri 8/12/2011 1:04 PM:

I read the entire article, and I still have no clue what on earth it has to
do with language -- Hasn't a hot dog always been a hot dog no matter how you
cook it?
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Reply: 
The main point of linguistic interest is the picture accompanying the article in the link below (mentioned in my Aug. 10 message).  
IAC, ads-l has treated the origin of "hot dog" in considerable detail, and I thought that some ads-l members might be interested in this latest article. Usually, long articles on the hot dog say something (albeit incorrect) about the origin of the term, and the absence of such an attempt in the recent NY Times article may be meaningful.  I.e., the absence might reflect an awareness on the part of the author that it would be better to sidestep the issue of the term's origin than risk getting it wrong.
 
Gerald Cohen
(co-author with Barry Popik and the late David Shulman of the book Origin Of The Term "Hot Dog", 2004;
additional, very valuable information has since surfaced thanks to Fred Shapiro, Ben Zimmer,
and Barry Popik)

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
From: Cohen, Gerald Leonard
Sent: Wed 8/10/2011 9:56 AM
To: American Dialect Society
Cc: bapopik at aol.com
Subject: hot dog article in NY Times


For "hot dog" afficionados: 
Barry Popik has drawn my attention to a recent NY Times article on the New York hot dog:
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/dining/the-hot-dog-redefined-one-cart-at-a-time.html
 
The article does not treat the origin of the term "hot dog." But a picture accompanying the article in the above link caught my attention.  It shows a hot dog vendor, "ca. 1910," but the sign on his cart doesn't say "Hot Dogs";
it says "Hot Frankfurters."
 
The term "hot dog" had not yet become a generally accepted term (still a bit akin in its semantic nuance to "roadkill"), and vendors wishing to entice passers-by to purchase their comestible no doubt felt they would have better luck by having their signs proclaim "Hot Frankfurters." 
 
G. Cohen
 
 

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