Hot Dog
I recently read that the term 'hot dog' came from the 1904 St Louis World's Fair. Apparently, there was a rumour that some of the performers there ate dog, and that local dogs had disappeared, so the vendors started calling frankfurters in a bun 'hot dogs'.
I have also heard that the name emerged during the First World War, to avoid using a German word, much as French Fries became 'freedom fries' for a while.
Does anyone know the definitive answer to this?
Categories: General
I don't know if there is a definitive answer, Tdol, but there are a few variants. The term "hot dog" first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1900.
One of the more popular etiologies for "hot dog" is atttributed to a sports cartoonist, T.A. "Tad" Dorgan. Dorgan would portay his subjects as dachschund dogs who apparently were known for their pithy sayings. Often the cartoon dogs would put down the hot dogs sold at Coney Island, suggesting they were made of dog meat.
This gave the Coney Island hot dog such bad press that the term was banned from signs in 1913.
(I expect the banning didn't last long!)
I could write more about the hot dog, but it would be quite long. So just one comment which I find rather amusing : hot dogs apparently contain nitrates , a natural depressor of the libido. Military Forces in the field were (and maybe are) given a very hot doggy diet, for obvious reasons:-)