Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog" Pushed Back to 1886, (Corrected Citation)
Joel S. Berson
Berson at ATT.NET
Wed Jan 23 14:42:26 UTC 2013
Can a food dish using rye bread (and perhaps in preference to rolls)
and horseradish really originate in Tennessee rather than New York City?
(Wondered only half seriously.)
Joel
At 1/22/2013 07:09 PM, sclements at NEO.RR.COM wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>If everyone goes back and reads Fred's complete article, you'll find
>conflicting evidence for the answers.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>"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. He is the
>wiener wurst
>fiend. It is his cries that greet you as you enter the theater and
>regreet you
>as you come out. He is the creature whose rolls make night hideous, and whose
>wares make dreams that poison sleep. The luxury came originally from Austria.
>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. In the basket he keeps his rye bread and
>horse-radish.
>The sausage, sandwiched by two slices of bread !
> which have been smeared with the horse-radish, make up the wiener
> wurst, which
>costs you a nickel. Since Shakespeare asserted that nectar was the food the
>gods lived on, it has been discovered that wiener wurst is the stuff that
>fattens dudes. The young men who sell the article are, as a rule,
>not modest. <<<<<<
>
>First it says "He is the creature whose rolls make night hideous"
>and then contradicts by saying "In the basket he keeps his rye bread
>and horse-radish. The sausage, sandwiched by two slices of bread !"
>
>So, there's bread of some form in the basket. I personally doubt
>they had rolls as the last reference to two slices of bread is pretty specific.
>
>Sam Clements.
>
>---- Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> > The basket could be for papers.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:49 AM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster: "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
> > > Subject: Re: Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog" Pushed
> > > Back
> > > to 1886, (Corrected Citation)
> > >
> > >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > The sausages are in the top part of the cooking thing, in the
> water, being
> > > or to be cooked, the alcohol burner being in the lower part. Basket gotta
> > > be
> > > for buns. BTW, snub is buns spelled backwards.
> > > DAD
> > >
> > >
> > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > Subject: Re: Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog"
> Pushed Back to
> > > 1886, (Corrected Citation)
> > >
> > > Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > Subject: Re: Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog" Pushed
> > > Back
> > > to 1886, (Corrected Citation)
> > >
> > >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > ---
> > >
> > > At 1/22/2013 10:07 AM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> > > >Isn't that what the basket was for? The rolls?
> > > >
> > > >>the fiend who carries in one hand a tin cooking arrangement, and on the
> > > >>other arm a basket.
> > >
> > > Where did the fiend carry the yet-to-be-cooked wursts? In the "tin
> > > cooking arrangement"? (And if there were no rolls, I suspect not
> > > wrapped in wax paper -- see below -- but, like fish and chips, in
> > > probably-cheaper newspaper -- after all, it was called the
> "penny press".)
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
> > >
> > > > > <snip>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >DanG
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:17 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> > > ><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Subject: Re: Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog"
> > > Pushed
> > > > > Back
> > > > > to 1886, (Corrected Citation)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > ---
> > > > >
> > > > > 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:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Poster: Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> > > > > > Subject: Re: Earliest Known Occurrence of the Term "Hot Dog"
> > > Pushed
> > > > > > Back
> > > > > > to 1886, (Corrected Citation)
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > ---
> > > > > > > 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
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list