A Hoagie by Any Other Name Dave Wilton Albany, California
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® THE LANGUAGE QUARTERLY Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 Autumn 2003 VERBATIM Editor: Erin McKean Founding Editor: Laurence Urdang A Hoagie By Any Other Name Dave Wilton Albany, California “I wanna shake off the dust of this one-horse blimpie, and bomber), from the size (hero, hoagie), town. I wanna explore the world. I wanna watch from ethnic association (Italian sandwich, Cuban TV in a different time zone. I wanna visit strange, sandwich), from the type of bread used (muffuletta, exotic malls. I’m sick of eating hoagies! I want a spuckie), or from the fact that the sandwich is a grinder, a sub, a foot-long hero! I want to live, cheap meal (poor boy). Marge! Won’t you let me live? Won’t you, please?” Where I grew up, in the town of Toms River on —Homer Simpson the New Jersey Shore, we knew the sandwich as a ne of the amusements offered by my frequent sub, short for submarine sandwich, so called Otravels to Europe is seeing The Simpsons because the long, tubular shape resembles the sub- translated into different languages. Homer speak- mersible vessel. Sub is the general name for the ing French or German is something to behold. But sandwich, found throughout the United States and sometimes I wonder if all of the humor translates not associated with any particular region. The name along with the words. The above-quoted passage is dates to the mid-1950s, although there is at least one of the best jokes ever seen on that show—at one claim (made in 1967) that the word existed as least to my inner linguist. But even in Britain, early as 1928. where they don’t bother to dub the original It is often asserted that the name submarine American voices, probably only a few get the joke. sandwich began in New London, Connecticut, You see a hoagie, a grinder, a sub, and a hero are after the naval submarine base there, but there is one and the same thing. They are simply regional no evidence to support this contention. Sub, the names for a sandwich served on a large Italian roll sandwich, is not associated with Connecticut in par- and filled with Italian meat, cheese, lettuce, toma- ticular. (Although the Subway® chain of sandwich to, onion, and sprinkled with olive oil and spices. shops got its start in 1965 as Pete’s Super Sub- Variations on the basic recipe are made by filling marine Shop in Bridgeport, about 70 miles from the sandwich with other things, such as tuna salad, New London.) And if the 1928 claim were true, it roast beef, ham and cheese, meatballs, and all man- would seem unlikely as that citation is from ner of other ingredients. Subs can be served either Philadelphia. hot or cold. All the exotic things that Homer associ- Torpedo, related to sub, is found throughout the ates with travel are simply roses by another name. U.S. It is often used to refer to a small or half-sized And Homer is just scratching the surface of the sub, a torpedo roll being a smaller piece of bread. lexical diversity of the sandwich. In addition to the I learned my first exotic name for the sandwich, names he cites there are: poor boy, torpedo, Italian hoagie, during my earliest school days. We had subs sandwich, rocket, zeppelin or zep, blimpie, garibal- at home. We ate subs at local restaurants (sub- di, bomber, wedge, muffuletta, Cuban sandwich, shops). But for some reason the school cafeteria and spuckie. Most of these names are associated served hoagies. That’s the name given to the sand- with a particular region of the United States. The wich in Philadelphia (also known for that other names also fall into several distinct patterns of ori- famous sandwich, the Philly cheesesteak, which can gin, from the shape (sub, torpedo, rocket, zeppelin, be considered a variant on the basic sub theme). Page 2 VERBATIM VOL. XXVIII, NO. 3 Contents Vol. XXVIII, No. 3 Autumn 2003 Articles A Hoagie By Any Other Name Dave Wilton p. 1 Greguerías: Squeaks/Pipsqueaks? Walter Redfern p. 6 Blog This Steve Lawson p. 8 Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, Lend Me Your Good Ear Jerome Betts p. 10 Ersatz Languages Gordon S. Jones p. 12 Let There Be Light Larry Tritten p. 19 Famous Last Words Paul Bayliss p. 21 You’ve Got Game Gloria Rosenthal p. 23 Columns Horribile Dictu Mat Coward p. 11 Classical Blather: It’s Only Music, Don’t Be Scherzo Nick Humez p. 14 As the Word Turns: Latin Lovers Barry Baldwin p. 18 Ex Cathedra Erin McKean p. 30 Bibliographia Rogue Scholar by Richard W. Bailey Michael Adams p. 26 The Hidden Language of Baseball by Paul Dickson Ron Kaplan p. 28 Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions by Orin Hargraves Fraser Sutherland p. 29 plus a crossword puzzle and EPISTOLAE Contributions: VERBATIM will publish articles, anecdotes, squibs, letters, and other materials at the discretion of the Editor. If at all possible, please send your submission as an email attachment. Unless accepted for publication, unsolicit- ed submissions will be neither returned nor acknowledged unless return postage is provided by the sender. Queries by email are STRONGLY recommended. Send queries or articles to the Chicago address below. Editor: Erin McKean Founding Editor: Laurence Urdang Editorial Consultant: Paul Heacock UK Representative: Hazel Hall Copy Editor: Lorraine Alexson Crosswords Editor: Pamela Wylder Board Members: Joan Houston Hall and Michael Adams ©VERBATIM®, The Language Quarterly, ©2002, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, Autumn 2003 (ISSN 0162–0932). VERBATIM is a trademark reg. U.S. Pat. Off. This journal is indexed by the American Humanities Index. VERBATIM (ISSN 0162–0932) is published quarterly for US$25 per year by Word, Inc., 4907 N. Washtenaw Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to VERBATIM, 4907 N. Washtenaw Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625. VERBATIM is printed in Canada on recycled paper. Business and editorial offices are located at 4907 N. Washtenaw Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625. email: [email protected] web page: http://www.verbatimmag.com For subscriptions in U.K., Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East (UK£18), please write to VERBATIM, P.O. Box 156, Chearsley, Aylesbury, Bucks HP18 0DQ, or email: [email protected]. For subscriptions in North America (US$25) or anywhere else not covered above (US$30), please write VERBATIM, 4907 N. Washtenaw Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625 (800–897–3006), or email: [email protected]. VERBATIM VOL. XXVIII, NO. 3 Page 3 Hoagie permeated outward from Philadelphia, seems unlikely that an Irish name would be associ- attenuating in use as it traveled, until by the time it ated with the Italian sandwich. reached Toms River it was known only in the school A second and more likely explanation is that an cafeterias. (Whoever wrote the cafeteria menus for enterprising restaurateur coined it. Al De Palma, the Toms River school system was probably from the self-proclaimed “King of the Hoagies,” claims Philadelphia.) Hoagie is common throughout to have coined hoggie. In 1928, while working as a Pennsylvania and much of southern New Jersey. jazz musician, De Palma saw some fellow musicians My portion of the Jersey Shore lacked a strong eating a submarine. Impressed with the size of the Philly influence. Even today the main road from sandwich, De Palma remarked that, “you had to be Toms River to Philadelphia, Route 70, is a two-lane hog to eat one.” When the Depression hit, De country highway for much of its length. As a boy, I Palma couldn’t find work as a musician and in 1936 rooted for the Mets, not the Phillies, even though opened up a sandwich shop. Recalling the sand- Veterans Stadium was much closer, as the crow wich and his remark from eight years before, he flies, than Shea. Our beaches were filled with visi- made and sold hoggies in the shop. He was quite tors from Bergen County and New York, who came successful, eventually opening a chain of hoagie down the Garden State Parkway. Philadelphians shops and earning himself his sobriquet. went to beaches further south: Long Beach Island, De Palma’s claim and story is consistent with Wildwood, and Ocean City. Hence, hoagie was the date of the name’s appearance. He opened his somewhat of foreign term to the Jersey Shore of sandwich shop in 1936 and the term (hoggie) my childhood. appears in advertising copy by 1941. The word hoagie first appears in print in 1945, Eames & Robboy include De Palma’s account with alternate spellings like hoogie and hoggie as a footnote in their 1967 American Speech article. appearing as early as 1941. How it got its name is an They do not, however, give his name. But various often debated topic. other accounts of the tale do and from these one The most commonly touted explanation is that can determine who the “King of the Hoagies” was. it comes from the name of Hog Island, These other accounts often confuse various details Philadelphia. In the early part of the twentieth cen- of the story, however. The WaWa (a Philadelphia- tury there was a shipyard on Hog Island (now the area chain of convenience stores) website, for site of the Philadelphia airport). During the First example, places the 1928 incident among Italian World War, Italian-American shipyard workers, or shipyard workers on Hog Island instead of among hoggies as they were known, would bring large jazz musicians—a chronological impossibility. But sandwiches to work with them.