"hot dog" on Morning Edition

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Mon Jul 4 16:16:48 UTC 2011


On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> 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.

Thanks, Larry -- I asked them to fix those errors, and now it's all copacetic.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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