Is a hotdog a sandwich?

The authorities genuinely disagree, which is why this argument has outlived several governments. Merriam-Webster ruled yes: a sandwich is meat between bread, a hotdog qualifies, case closed. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, which exists, issued an official 2015 proclamation ruling no, declaring the hotdog an exuberant category of its own and calling the sandwich label a limitation. New York State's tax department, meanwhile, taxes hotdogs alongside sandwiches, because tax law has no romance in it.

Our ruling: not a sandwich. Three grounds. Structure: the bun is a single hinged piece of bread, and by that logic a taco and an open book are sandwiches, which is absurd. Loading: sandwiches load vertically, hotdogs load lengthwise into a trench, a fundamentally different architecture. Culture: no one, offered a sandwich, is satisfied to receive a hotdog, and language answers to expectations, not geometry.

The hotdog is a hotdog. It needs no host category. Appeal denied.