On Tuesday 07 December 2004 02:40 pm, John Cowan wrote:
> Roger Mills scripsit:
>
> > Truth to tell, I'd never heard of [hero sandwiches] until college
> > years in Boston (50s)-- where they're also called "grinders" (why?????)
>
> Probably because they look like they could reach back to one's grinders,
> i.e. the molars (which is just Latin for "grinders", as in the millstones
> of a grain mill.) The term is general in the whole non-rhotic area around
Boston.
>
> > In New Orleans, "po'boys", in Miami, "Cuban sandwiches".
>
> Cuban sandwiches, unlike the others, are toasted in some kind of device
> that makes them come out compressed.
>
> Other names include "hoagies" (Philadelphia), "torpedoes", "wedges", and
> "zep(pelin)s". Wikipedia thinks the sandwich is not Italian, but was
> designed in New York City for Italian immigrants.
>
> Finally, there is the term "Dagwood sandwich", referring to Blondie's
husband
> in the long-running comic strip _Blondie_. I don't know if this is live
> usage or just a kind of in-joke.
>
> --
> "And it was said that ever after, if any John Cowan
> man looked in that Stone, unless he had a
jcowan@reutershealth.com
> great strength of will to turn it to other www.ccil.org/~cowan
> purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering
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> in flame." --"The Pyre of Denethor"
>
"Grinders" were also the normal usage in Connecticut (rhotic), at least
through 1980.
--
Elyse Grasso
The World of Cherani Station
www.data-raptors.com/cherani/index.html
Cherani Tradespeech
www.data-raptors.com/cherani/tradespeech.html