Hot Dog: A Morbid College JokeThe food's name started as a dark campus rumor.
From the show
Iconic Names ExplainedThe term 'hot dog' wasn't coined by a cartoonist, but by 1890s Yale students. They jokingly referred to sausages from 'dog wagons' as 'hot dogs,' hinting at a dark suspicion about the meat's origin. This slang was inspired by the 'dachshund sausages' introduced by German immigrants, whose long, thin dogs resembled the food.
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