Hot dogs are bastardized from three separate Germanic names. Frankfurt sausages sounded a bit formal, so you got "hot dachshunds," except Americans could neither spell nor pronounce the name of that breed, so you get "hot dogs." If you asked what a hot dog was you'd probably be told it's a wiener on a bun, where the English word "wiener" is a loanword from the German conjugation of "from Vienna." And we've come full circle by routinely referring to dachshunds as wiener dogs.

The less-fun tangent about the prominence of German food in American culture is that New York was famed for its wealthy German-American families until all their wives and children were on a boat that sank. I am not joking.

[–] Mkengine@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I always found it funny that it is called "dachshund" in English. In German it is called "Dackel" and "dachshund" would be translated as "badger dog". I don't think that a badger is really meant here, but that the language has just developed a bit strangely (like with the word ampersand).

[–] ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

We call them that because they were meant to drive badgers from dens. It's why they are so inclined to be aggressive little shits when not properly trained

[–] Mkengine@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the explanation, I didn't know that and wikipedia does not explain that in their etymology section.

[–] ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago

Always happy to help, it's not often that my families multiple generations of dog breeding and training actually provides relevant information to internet conversations

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (12 replies)