Newspaper Corrects Every Single "Hot Dog Sandwich" Reference in Its History

The debate about whether a hot dog is a sandwich or not is a heated one, with people feeling equally passionate on both sides of the issue. People who believe hot dogs are sandwiches claim that because there is bread involved, that makes the answer obvious. Those who disagree feel that even without the bread a hot dog is still a hot dog and therefore not a sandwich.

Now, the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal, has made their position known — and, in the process, issued almost a century's worth of corrections. The corrections, which begin in 1887 and end in 1966, are for "incorrectly" referring to hot dogs as sandwiches.

“Among those errors were references to a frankfurter sausage sandwich, frankfurter sandwich, coney island sandwich, frankfurter sandwich with mustard, and, the most egregious, a frankfurter sandwich with catchup,” reads the correction, issued Wednesday. “We deeply regret the errors, especially that last one.”

It's worth noting that the move puts the Courier-Journal in line with the official stance of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, which recently declared hot dogs are not sandwiches. The head of marketing for Oscar Mayer, however, comes down on the other side of the debate: he insists that hot dogs are, in fact, sandwiches, saying, “the dictionary defines a hot dog as a sandwich consisting of a frankfurter in a split roll. I was an English major as an undergrad, so I’m taking the contrarian view that it is a sandwich, because it really aggravates people in the office here.”

That position may be an outdated one, though. The majority of the public seems to be inching towards the conclusion that hot dogs are just hot dogs, as colloquial language has drifted away from the use of the word "frankfurter."