What origin does the word hot dog come from?

Answer 1

Ok it's a long story but here we go. (please forgive any grammer and spelling errors)

Basically the "HOT" part of the name is easy to decipher because it is simply a hot meal, and there are dry or cold types of SAUSAGE (salami,pepperoni). Sausage comes from a latin word Salsus meaning salted. This "salted meat" or Sausage (Wurst in German) is exactley what a "hot dog" is.

**other nicknames for hot-dogs include Frankfurter (perhaps relating to the cost of it in franks and being a foot long) and Red-hot (a precursor to Hot-Dog, relating to its color, temperature, and spiceness perhaps).

Now the "DOG" part of the name comes from the Dachsund, a German dog also known as a "WIENER dog" or "sausage dog". The Dachsund was bred to hunt badgers in the 16th century thus its name means literally "badger hound" (dachs=badger)+ (hund=hound). Now ironically we have a food that is named after a dog, that was nicknamed after a nickname for the food!

The mystery and irony doesn't stop there. "Wiener" is the German word for "Vienna". Vienna is the capitol of Austria. Vienna seems to be very closely related to latin words that sprang from the word VENUS. Other similar latin words are the roots of such English words as VEIN, VAIN, etc. Further implications of a "venus" connection is the fact that the famous venus statue of willendorf was uncovered in Vienna. To me, the statue is a sure sign of venus worship, which could be a precursor to the sensual or erotic flare of "Vienna" (look up Diana, Aphrodite, Venus, Columbia...all the same Mother goddess of fertility and "Eros- type" love).

Whats the point of me mentioning a possible Venus connection? The sensual nature of the hot-dog itself! "Wiener" is well known slang for a man's penis. The Dachsund, the Sausage, the Male Member itself, all have that same suggestive phallic shape. So what came first the "chicken or the eggs"? No pun intended, but lets examine what happens even if we leave Venus (which rhymes with Penis) out of the equation, and go by the official(s) definition(s) of "Vienna".

According to Etymologists the word Vienna has Roman and Celtic origins for a word that meant "white water", "torrent", or just plain "river". This makes sense because of Vienna's geography. It's by a river. How though are we to connect a word which means River to a nickname for a phallic looking sausage (and eventually to the Dachsund)? It's "the missing LINK" (pun intended). Vienna didn't invent sausage. They did make those little Vienna sausages, but not all sausages would be nicknamed a Vienna (Wiener) would they?

Well I propose a theory that the link between a torrent or river of white water and anything phallic is of course the only thing that matches both of those descriptions and is still called a Wiener (Vienna) today. The unit of male genitalia we call the penis.

So according to that proposal, it began as Vienna(Wiener) the River, Vienna (Wiener) the penis(slang), Wiener the Sausage (slang), Wienerthe dog (slang).

I think it may have been even a cover-up attempting to end the habit of Frankfurters being known as Wieners since everyone knew it also meant penis. Not so marketable of a thought in modern society. So referring to it as DOG is a reference to the Wiener dog and thus a clever way of saying wiener without saying wiener.

I may be wrong about a few things , maybe the order, but pretty much that's the connection. I know that the sausage was called Wiener before the dog was, because the dog was also called a Sausage-dog and is dated in the 16th century. The city Vienna is dated back to late 12th century so it definatley came before the dog reference. Sausage itself is older than Vienna, so sausage definatley wasnt called wiener before then.

Some people may want to tell themselves it's all mere coincidence that Wiener means Vienna and Sausages look like penises. Furthermore that Venus, the goddess of lust and erotic love, who is known also as Aphrodite (hence the term aphrodesiacs like Viagra) seems mysteriously connected to the city and even the word Vienna itself. I can imagine many Spring festivals in April the month of Venus, on Fridays the day of Venus, in the city of Vienna (the city of Venus?), where they drink wine (wien in German for Vien from yep you guessed it Vienna), and sip coffee and chocolate (known aphrodisiacs), and eat phallic symbols for food made of salty meat of all things and nickname them after the slang for penis which meant river. I can imagine them enjoying Vanilla whose bean inspired the name Vagina. So it wouldn't be the first time a famous food has etymological roots in human genitalia.

In conclusion if it looks like a duck...it's probly a duck. And if it looks like a Wiener...well you be the judge! LOL

*please research if your curious I would enjoy other peoples educated input, im done researching for now.*

Answer 2

Legend says that a concessionaire at a Giants Baseball game came up with the name. According to the legend, it was a cool day and the usual fare of lemonade and ice cream weren't selling, so he bought sausages, boiled them up and served them on soft buns. He had his seller calling, Hot Dogs, red hot dogs.

Answer 3

The word hot dog began as a joke about the Germans' small, long, thin dogs. In fact, even Germans called the frankfurter a "little-dog" or "dachshund" sausage, thus linking the word "dog" to their popular concoction.