Merriam-Webster Discredits Itself by Declaring a Hot Dog Is a Sandwich

The debate over whether a hot dog is a sandwich is tired and futile, with both sides firmly entrenched in their positions. On one side, you have correct people who do not believe a hot dog is a sandwich. On the other, you have fools who make themselves laughingstocks by believing a hot dog is, somehow, a sandwich. It's a debate that should be put to bed forever.

Well, Merriam-Webster is here to fire it up again and ruin everyone's Memorial Day weekend.

That tweet linked to a slideshow — Merriam-Webster does slideshows now? — detailing 10 different kinds of "sandwiches," including the hot dog. Of the summertime favorite, which most certainly is not a sandwich, Merriam-Webster says:

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.

Merriam-Webster is citing rules, and rules are made to be broken — especially when it comes to the English language. A hot dog is not a sandwich. A hot dog is a hot dog. By arguing otherwise, Merriam-Webster has torn its credibility asunder. The people agree.

Now, let's never speak of this again.

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