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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, a VOA Special English program aboutmusic and American life. Plus we answer your questions.
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I’m Phoebe Zimmermann. This week: What’s the real story behindthe hot dog. A listener wants to know! And a musical honor in memoryof Cuban-American singer Celia Cruz. But first — we tell about anhonor of a different kind that’s good for some laughs.
Lily Tomlin
HOST:
There are awards for lots of things. In America, there is even anaward for being funny. But it is a serious award. It’s presented bythe Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. FaithLapidus tells us about the Mark Twain Award for American Humor.
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Mark Twain was a writer in the nineteenth century. He becamefamous for his critical humor about society. The Kennedy Centerestablished the award in his name in nineteen-ninety-eight. It goesto a person whose lifetime of work is funny, but also examinespolitical and social issues. This year Lily Tomlin won the award.
Lily Tomlin has spent more thanthirty years in comedy. In the nineteen-seventies, she appeared onthe television show “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.” During that timeshe created two of her best known characters. One is a five-year-oldgirl named Edith Ann who sits in a huge chair. The other isErnestine the telephone operator.
Listen now as she “calls” J. Edgar Hoover, the head of theFederal Bureau of Investigation.
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This performance was from Lily Tomlin’s nineteen-seventy-onecomedy album “This is a Recording.” That record won a Grammy Awardfor best comedy performance.
In nineteen-seventy-five, Lily Tomlin was nominated for anAcademy Award for best supporting actress. She was recognized forher part in the film “Nashville.” It was her first movie. Sincethen, she has appeared in many other films.
Lily Tomlin also has been honored for her theatre work. Shereceived a Tony Award in nineteen-seventy-seven for her one-personshow, “Appearing Nitely.” She won her second Tony innineteen-eighty-six in the Jane Wagner play “The Search for Signs ofIntelligent Life in the Universe.”
And, if you watch the TV show “The West Wing” each week, you seeher play an assistant to the president of the United States!
History of the Hot Dog
Host:
Our VOA listener question this week comes by e-mail from Russia.Nadya and her father ask about the history of the hot dog.
A hot dog is a long, thin sausageusually made of beef, pork or chicken. It is served on a roll ofsoft bread. Hot dogs are popular especially when people gettogether, like at sporting events.
German immigrants brought this kind of sausage to America in thelate eighteen-hundreds.
One story widely told is that the name “hot dog” began with acartoonist in New York in the early nineteen-hundreds. He drewdachshunds in rolls and wrote “get your hot dogs.” A dachshund is asmall German dog that looks like a sausage with legs.
Supposedly he wrote this because he did not know how to spell”frankfurter.” That is another name for long, thin sausage.Frankfurt is a German city.
Well, as the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council now admits,this is not how the name hot dog was invented.
Language experts in the United States worked hard in recent yearsto settle the question. One expert, Barry Popik [PAH-pik], found apopular song from eighteen-sixty. It showed that some people at thattime had suspicions that sausage was made of dog meat.
He found other evidence from the eighteen-nineties. Students atYale University began to call the wagons that sold hot sausages inbuns “dog wagons.” Later, a story in the Yale Record talked aboutstudents eating “hot dogs.”
But the Web site worldwidewords-dot-o-r-g says the new researchshows that the history is more complex than that. The term “hot dog”had already been invented not long before. It described awell-dressed young man.
Over the years, this meaning has changed. Today a person whoshows off is called a “hot dog.” An American football player, forexample, might dance around for the crowd after he catches a ball.
But most hot dogs are for eating. The National Hot Dog andSausage Council says Americans ate more than twenty-thousand millionof them last year.
Celia Cruz
HOST:
We do not usually play fast, happy music when we report about thedeath of someone. But how can we report about Celia Cruz and notplay some of the beautiful music she gave the world? Celia Cruz diedlast month of brain cancer. She was seventy-eight years old. SteveEmber tells us more about her.
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You do not have to speak Spanish to enjoy the music of CeliaCruz. All you have to do is listen and smile.
Celia Cruz sang songs that makeyou feel the warm sun of her native Cuba. Her music makes your feetwant to dance. Listen for a moment to a song called “Contestacion alMarinero.”
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Celia Cruz was born in a poor area of Havana. She became wellknown in Cuba in the nineteen-fifties, after she won a radio contestfor singers. Soon she was singing with the most famous big band inCuba, La Sonora Matancera.
Celia Cruz never stopped singing. She came to the United Stateswhen Cuba was no longer free. She never talked about politicalproblems. She always let her music speak for her. Here she sings”Juancito Trucupey.”
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Celia Cruz always had a huge smile as she walked onto a stage.She would take the microphone and shout “Azuuuuuuuucar!” The peoplewho came to hear her would scream the word back to her. “Azucar”means sugar in Spanish. Then the sweet music would begin.
We must end our story now. But, first, imagine it is thenineteen-fifties. We are sitting at a table at the famous TropicanaHotel in Havana. The lights on the stage become very bright. CeliaCruz walks to the microphone. The band members from La SonoraMatancera start to play. And Celia Cruz begins. We leave you with asong called “Yerbero Moderno.”
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HOST:
This is Phoebe Zimmermann, sitting in for Doug Johnson. If youhave a question about American life, send it to mosaic atwww.voanews.com. We’ll send you a gift if we use your question. Soplease include your name and postal address. You can also write toAmerican Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., 20237, USA.
Our program was written by Jill Moss, Nancy Steinbach and PaulThompson. Our producer was Caty Weaver.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radiomagazine in Special English.