In its home country of Germany, the hot dog was called the frankfurter. It was named after Frankfurt, a German city.
Frankfurters were first sold in the United States in the 1860s. Americans called frankfurters "dachshund sausages." A dachshund is a dog from Germany with a very long body and short legs. "Dachshund sausage" seemed like a good name for the frankfurter.
Dachshund sausages first became popular in New York, especially at baseball games. At games they were sold by men who kept them warm in hot-water tanks. As the men walked up and down the rows of people, they yelled, "Get your dachshund sausages! Get your hot dachshund sausages!" People got the sausages on buns, a special bread.
One day in 1906 a newspaper cartoonist named Tad Dorgan went to a baseball game. When he saw the men with the dachshund sausages, he got an idea for a cartoon. The next day at the newspaper office he drew a bun with a dachshund inside--not a dachshund sausage, but a dachshund. Dorgan didn't know how to spell dachshund. Under the cartoon, he wrote "Get your hot dogs!"
The cartoon was a sensation, and so was the new name. If you go to a baseball game today, you can still see sellers walking around with hot-water tanks. As they walk up and down the rows they yell, "Get your hot dogs here! Get your hot dogs!"
a. Germany
b. The USA
c. France
2. What does the dachshund mean?
a. A sausage
b. A dog
c. A cat
3. Where did hot dogs become popular?
a. At baseball games
b. At basketball games
c. At football games
4. Who was the inventor of the name “hot dog”?
a. A baseball player
b. A seller
c. A cartoonist
5. How do sellers keep hot dogs warm?
a. With special machine
b. With water
c. With sun warmth
6. Where did people get a sausage in hot dogs?
a. On special kind of bread
b. On the salad
c. On the fish
7. What is the synonym for the word ‘tanks’ (paragraph 3)?
a. Bags
b. Purses
c. Containers
d. Pouches
