Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog" Pushed Back to 1886, (Corrected Citation)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Good point, Amy.  And  no rolls are mentioned. Were the dogs sold wrapped
in waxed paper?

JL

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:07 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog" Pushed
> Back
>               to 1886,        (Corrected Citation)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 1/22/13 12:03 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> > Date:    Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:17:53 +0000
> > From:    "Shapiro, Fred"<fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject: Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog" Pushed Back to
> 1886
> >           (Corrected Citation)
> >
> > The Tennessee provenance of the term "hot dog" now seems stronger, as I
> have found an 1886 citation from that state:
> >
> > hot dog (OED 1892)
> >
> > 1886_Nashville Tennessean_  14 Nov. 9/2 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
> >
> > "Hot stuff," "hot pup," "hot dog," sings out the fiend who carries in
> one hand a tin cooking arrangement, and on the other arm a basket.
> <snip>
> >    Wiener means little and generally speaking, the purchaser gets a
> little the wurst of it.  (No diagram of this joke.)  Wurst means, in
> English, sausage; so that when one of these peddlers says wiener wurst to
> you he means do you want a little sausage.  The tin vessel which he carries
> is divided into two compartments.  The upper is filled with water, in which
> are about a thousand, more or less, skin sausages.  In the lower apartment
> is the alcohol stove that keeps the sausages hot.
> >
> Here's what intrigues me: the equivalence of "wiener" with little. Are
> they falsely analogizing by/playing on "wee"? They get "wurst" right, so
> something's going on with "wiener." And the mention of "a thousand" may
> be exaggeration, but still indicates a small size. So, I'm inferring
> that in this appearance, they're very much like what we still call
> "Vienna sausages".
>
> ---Amy West
>
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