May 30, 2016
By definition, a hot dog is a sandwich.
That's according to dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, who waded into a debate that's provided plenty of conversation within the group of local tweeters known collectively as "Philly Twitter."
The publisher said Friday that a hot dog is technically a sandwich because, quite simply, it falls under their definition of one: two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between.
Merriam-Webster explained in further detail:
We know: the idea that a hot dog is a sandwich is heresy to some of you. But given that the definition of sandwich is "two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between," there is no sensible way around it. If you want a meatball sandwich on a split roll to be a kind of sandwich, then you have to accept that a hot dog is also a kind of sandwich.
You could hinge your anti-hot-dog-as-sandwich argument on whether the hot dog sausage qualifies as a "filling," but if you choose to interpret filling narrowly as only "a food mixture used to fill pastry or sandwiches," rather than broadly as "something used to fill a cavity, container, or depression," then you're not going to allow any single-item filling to qualify a food item as a sandwich—which means there can be no thing as a peanut butter sandwich or a bologna (or even baloney) sandwich.
This decision should probably be welcome by Philly Twitter, a majority of whom seem to believe a hot dog is in fact a sandwich.
Last year, a statement from the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council that said a hot dog wasn't a sandwich because it was in "a category unto its own" sparked outrage from SportsRadio 94 WIP programming director Spike Eskin.
Whether a hot dog is or is not a sandwich is a question often posed to local athletes as a sort of right of passage (Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola and Sixers guard Nik Stauskas both say it isn't).
We asked you last year, and 56 percent of you said a hot dog was a sandwich. But we'll ask again: Is a hot dog a sandwich? Vote below:
