"hot dog" on Morning Edition

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:21 AM -0400 7/4/11, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>I was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition about the latest research on the
>origins of "hot dog," including Fred Shapiro's discovery of an 1892 citation
>from Paterson, NJ:
>
>http://www.npr.org/2011/07/04/137530290/searching-history-for-the-hot-dogs-origin
>
>Not sure when the segment airs this morning, but the audio will be available
>online at the above link soon.
>
Nice remarks, but weird editing around the Tad Dorgan mythography. I
was especially amused (as someone who grew up in the shadow of the
Polo Grounds) at the reference to "the polo grounds...where New
York's baseball giants used to play".  And somehow the editing also
makes it look like Ben is providing the story ("But, Zimmer says,
Dorgan didn't know how to spell 'dachshund', so he wrote 'hotdog'
instead"), even though it's clear from the next sentence that he's
recounting the familiar myth.  I hadn't really thought about how
editing a story of this kind is supposed to work, but this makes it
clear how it isn't.  (And "Pat(t)erson" is misspelled twice.  At
least none of this will come through on the audio.)  Interesting
about Hot Dog Morris.

LH

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