Blithe She-Does-Her-Best-to-Suit-Herself Correspondent Cynthia queries:
Is a corn dog a sandwich? How bout a foot-long corn dog?
The foot-long-er repulses me a little, but Jon loves em. Once he actually ate TWO. They were good corn dogs tho — dipped in batter and dropped in oil right in front of our eyes.
This brings to mind a dentist I used to see, a Dr. Footer. That name always seemed so…wrong.
sand·wich [sand-wich, san-] –noun
1. two or more slices of bread or the like with a layer of meat, fish, cheese, etc., between each pair.
2. open sandwich.
3. something resembling or suggesting a sandwich, as something in horizontal layers: a plywood sandwich.
Key words in solving this conundrum: “the like”, “resembling” and “suggesting”. After pondering, I am still puzzled, although”horizontal” has got me thinkin’ that it’s all in the angle. Freya’s got the resemblance of a sandwich while her dad has a slightly uncommitted corndog.
The Lunch Encounter 
What’s the OED got on sandwich? Anyone got an e-copy of it? Let’s get to the bottom of this. Personally – I don’t think it’s a sandwich if it’s on a stick – it’s a kebab.
Okay, okay. It is not a sandwich. But it is not a kebab either. At the Ohio state fair you can get ANYTHING (an egg, corn, you name it) on a stick, but does that make it a kebab? I would say no.
I don’t have an answer to the question, I just had to post about what a super cute dad and daughter they are!!
Since Mike asked, here’s the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED’s) original/first [although a bit sloppy] definition of what’s called a sandwich.
“1. An article of food for a light meal or snack, composed of two thin slices of bread, usu. buttered, with a savoury (orig. spec. meat, esp. beef or ham) or other filling. Freq. with specifying word prefixed indicating contents, as ham, egg, watercress, peanut butter (see PEANUT 3a) sandwich, or form, as club (see CLUB n. 20), Dagwood, Denver, hero (see HERO n. 5), poor boy (see POOR a. (n.) 8), submarine sandwich (see SUBMARINE n.). Occas. with only one slice of bread, as in open or open-faced sandwich (see OPEN a. (adv.) 22c), or with biscuits, sliced buns, or cake.”
As one looks through the word’s history, there’s plenty of wobble or creep, in its use. But personally, I think this version of the meaning is basically fine. And at least in the most strict way, the OED does not appear to support corndogs as sand-wiches.
Wobble and creep, alright. You can say that again. A slippery slope. Kinda like, sliver, slice, slab, slob.
Thanks for the clarification. You must be in the library business: )