Before you click off of this editorial in rage at the thought of a hot dog being a sandwich, please give me a chance to frame this debate for you. Merriam-Webster provides the definition of sandwich as “two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between.“ (Sandwich, Merriam-Webster) This definition will be a core pillar in the rest of our debate, however, we will also look into the origins of the word, we will discuss the process of abstraction as well as delve into pure logic to help show that a hot dog is a sandwich. I will also bring up some of the primary pieces of evidence used to prove that it is not a sandwich, these will be brought up so that I may provide a response to these pieces of evidence. Before moving on to the primary points of the argument, I would like to briefly mention a few things that may help ease you into the discussion.

First, I may be arguing that a hot dog is a sandwich, however, this does not mean that I would expect someone to refer to a hot dog as a sandwich; this is analogous to a friend saying they will bring by some fruit, and upon delivery you see they have brought tomatoes and cucumbers. This is not what you expected to receive, however, your friend is not wrong for having brought these items. Second, after doing some research into this topic, it seems that people tend to be offended at the idea of a hot dog being a sandwich, almost as if a sandwich is a derogatory term that lessens the glory that is the hot dog. Sandwiches are amazing, and calling a hot dog a sandwich is not said to offend anyone, in fact, I think of it as a compliment. Lastly, one of the main things that is holding people back from believing that a hot dog is a sandwich is the lack of an open mind. Trust me, I did not want to think of a hot dog as a sandwich either, however, the more I thought about it and the more I looked into what a sandwich is, the more I have come to terms with the idea that a hot dog is a sandwich.

Let’s first clear up the definition of a sandwich and then lets break down the components of a hot dog. This is a logical first step as the definition of a word provides an important reference as to how we categorize the things in our lives. To remind everyone, the definition of a sandwich is, “two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between.“(Sandwich, Merriam-Webster) Now, let’s break down this definition into the components. It seems as though a sandwich is made up of a specific subset of bread, as well as a filling, in which the filling must be sandwiched between the bread. Now, if we look at a classic hot dog, we have two primary components, the bun and the hot dog wiener. What is a bun you ask? I have the Merriam-Webster definition here, “a sweet or plain small bread.”(Bun, Merriam-Webster) So we know that a bun is bread, however, is this a split bread? I am glad you asked, yes, a hot dog bun is a split roll, the split portion of the bun is the section in which the hot dog wiener is placed. If you think about it, it would actually be impossible to construct a hot dog with a bun that has no split, as there would be no place for the hot dog wiener to go and thus it would roll off of the top of the bun. The second piece of criteria is that there is a filling, we all know that this is taken care of by the hot dog wiener and any other toppings that come along with it. To summarize, a sandwich needs bread and a filling, which a hot dog does comply with. Because of this, I would say that by definition, a hot dog is a sandwich.

Even though a hot dog may fit the definition of a sandwich, definitions evolve over time and this may not be entirely accurate as to the original meaning of the word sandwich. In order to debate that a hot dog would have originally be called a sandwich along with the origins of the word, we need to look at where the word sandwich comes from. According to Wyzant, the word sandwich comes from an English nobleman named John Montagu. He created the sandwich in 1762. The story goes that he was an avid gambler and didn’t want to stop gambling in order to enjoy a meal. He needed to be able to play cards and eat a meal at the same time without getting his hands messy. Thus, the brilliant idea of taking roast-beef and placing it between two pieces of bread was born. This allowed him to eat with one hand and hold cards in the other. So the original purpose of the sandwich is basically that the bread is to act as a container for the food in such a way that you may eat it easily, without a plate and only requiring one hand (The Sandwich—a Word with Nefarious, Blasphemous, and Corrupt Origins, Wyzant Resources). A hot dog fits this description perfectly as many consumers will grab a hot dog and go. As for the one hand thing, well, if someone was to eat a hot dog with two hands, you would think it was a little weird. So, back in the day, during the conception of the first sandwich, if they were out of roast-beef and only had hot dog wieners available, he would have gladly placed the hot dog wiener onto bread and named it a sandwich.

I would now like to delve into the process of abstraction, and explain how we use this in our everyday life subconsciously. Basically, abstraction is the act of taking something tangible with concrete meaning and stepping back to look at the essentials of the object in order to create a summary that represents a generalized concept of a specific instance. For example, a portobello mushroom is a mushroom in the same manor that a shiitake mushroom is a mushroom. Even though these mushrooms are very different and while the portobello mushroom is a member of the Agaricaceae family and the shiitake is a member of the Omphalotaceae family, they are still mushrooms all the same. This is because the essential components that you would like to represent when talking about the abstract concept of mushrooms remain the same. From this there are also abstractions of abstractions, such as the fact that mushrooms are part of the Fungi kingdom alongside yeast and mold. A mushroom is not mold, however, it shares enough characteristics with mold that they can be classified under the same roof, the fungi kingdom (Agaricus Bisporus, Wikipedia) (Fungus, Wikipedia) (Shiitake, Wikipedia). When looking at hot dogs, I would like to abstract the hot dog up to the level of sandwich, and while it is not important, sandwich can be further abstracted to food. You may say that this kind of reverse abstraction is heavily dependent on definitions, which we have already explained in a prior paragraph. I would like to say that this is true, however, I would also like to make the key distinction that hot dogs, when abstracted, do not fit into other definitions as properly as they fit the definition of sandwich. Abstraction also makes use of connotations of words. To best illustrate this, I will provide a situation I would like you to play out in your head. You are walking with your child down the street of Philadelphia and then suddenly you come across a hot dog salesman. Your child, being young and innocent, asks, “What is a hot dog?” Suddenly, you are thrust into a position of explaining a hot dog in terms that your little child understands. There are many ways in which this situation could play out, certainly many more than I care to explain. However, I will run through a couple situations that I see to be the most probable. You could say, it is a piece of meet in a bun/roll/bread. You could say it is like a sandwich with a special kind of bun/roll/bread and meet. You could say it is like a sausage on a bun/roll/bread. In all of these situations, you are either defining what it means to be a sandwich or you child may even say something along the lines of “oh… it’s like a sandwich?” in which the child is bridging the gaps between something they are familiar with, sandwiches, and something they are unfamiliar with, hot dogs. In fact, during my research of words that can accurately describe something like a sandwich, but isn’t a sandwich, has turned up fruitless. If someone out there knows of a word to describe something like a sandwich, but isn’t, please let me know. So, through the process of abstraction we are able to deduce that a hot dog can be described as a subset of sandwich.

We will now move onto pure logic as another means of arguing that a hot dog is a sandwich. I know most people out there are not familiar with logic and it is a complex area in which I am certainly a beginner, let alone a master. I will not be explaining this field, or these steps in great detail. Please feel free to skim/skip this paragraph if you are having trouble understanding. Basically, I am saying that if we have one thing, then we can conclude that we have another thing, this is through the use of the → symbol. The ↔ symbol means that the left implies we have the right, and the right implies that we have the left. If I have performed any missteps in my logic or have improperly defined this problem, please reach out and tell me. I would love to refine my thoughts and arguments to be as accurate as possible. So here we go!

1. Bun → Bread

2. HotDogWiener → Meat

3. Meat → Filling

4. (Bread & Filling) ↔ Sandwich

5. (Bun & HotDogWiener) → HotDog

After writing the definitions of what we have been given, we would like to prove that a hot dog is in fact a sandwich.

HotDog → Sandwich

(Bun & HotDogWiener) → Sandwich //Using definition 5.

(Bread & HotDogWiener) → Sandwich //Using definition 1.

(Bread & Meat) → Sandwich //Using definition 2.

(Bread & Filling) → Sandwich //Using definition 3.

(Bread & Filling) → (Bread & Filling) //Using definition 4.

This effectively means that so long as we have both a bun and a hot dog wiener, we will have a sandwich. This is all based on the working definitions we have for these abstract concepts.

Finally, I would like to wrap up by looking at the primary pieces of evidence that say a hot dog is not a sandwich and debunk these theories. Most argue that the historical significance that the hot dog has provided is great to the extent that it should be removed from the category of sandwich and becomes its own thing. The problem with this is that there are many other incredibly influential foods that do not receive this same treatment. Looking at other sandwiches, The Ruben has created large impact especially in the Midwest, there is a rich history to the sandwich that is riddled with mystery. Burgers and sliders are other sandwiches that do not get the same treatment as to be removed from the world of sandwich. The same goes for the French Dip, BLT, cheese steaks, etc. (The 101 Dishes That Changed America, Thrillist). I understand that these sandwiches do not pose quite the same historical significance as the hot dog, however, how should we determine what makes something historically significant enough to remove it from it’s sandwich status it has had for many years prior. The other primary debate is that the connotations of the hot dog do not match that of a sandwich. This means that when someone says that they are eating a sandwich, one does not think of a hot dog. While this may be true, if you were to define things based on this reasoning then you could hardly classify anything. Just as I mentioned earlier, if I were to bring tomatoes to a fruit party, I would not be wrong although it may be frowned upon. This is similar to other foods as well, if I were to tell you I was eating cereal right now, many of you would not jump to oatmeal.

In conclusion, hot dogs are not something off on their own, they are in fact sandwiches. Hot dogs can be considered sandwiches via the definition of sandwich. The origins of the meaning of sandwich align perfectly with the affordances of the hot dog. Using abstraction we can discover that a hot dog is a sandwich. Using the definitions in a purely logical sense also arrive at the same conclusion. Looking at counterarguments, we see that there may be bias leaning towards hot dogs that try to play up the historical significance in order to place hot dogs into their own category of food. I know that you may not think of a hot dog as a sandwich in the traditional sense, however, I hope that you can see that when analyzed from a pragmatic perspective, one can arrive this conclusion.

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Works Cited

“Agaricus Bisporus.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaricus_bisporus.

“Bun.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bun.

Food, Thrillist. “The 101 Dishes That Changed America.” Thrillist, Thrillist, 20 Mar. 2018, www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/most-important-dishes-food-that-changed-america.

“Fungus.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus.

“Sandwich.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sandwich.

“Shiitake.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiitake.

“The Sandwich—a Word with Nefarious, Blasphemous, and Corrupt Origins.” Sandwich, a Background of Its Origin | Wyzant Resources, www.wyzant.com/resources/lessons/english/etymology/words-mod-sandwich.