I may lose my friends, family, and even my job over this, but it needs to be said

A hot dog [b]IS[/b] a sandwich

I might be a little late to the debate, but I recently watched a video from a professor talking about how informal experiments showed him that even something as simple as whether or not a hot dog was a sandwich caused participants to devolve into the typical destructive patterns we see in tribalism. Battle lines were drawn, passions escalated, and people who were previously neutral to one another now looked at each other in bewilderment. It's an amusing and interesting observation that depicts, rather unfortunately, a microcosm of the human experience.

But since it was posed, I decided to give some thought to the question of: is a hot dog a sandwich?

To answer that, you would first need to understand what a sandwich even is. Is it necessary to have more than once piece of bread? What about hoagies or subs that only split one piece of bread wide enough to stuff the fillings into it? In that case, would a jelly doughnut or chocolate éclair count as a sandwich since it's basically bread with filling stuffed into it?

Or conversely, if I fold a singular slice of bread in half, does that mean I have an air sandwich? Does the actual type of filling determine what a sandwich is? Or does the type of bread determine whether or not it's a sandwich? Would an ice cream sandwich still be a sandwich? Or an Oreo still a sandwich cookie? Is a quesadilla just a Mexican grilled cheese?

I've taken it upon myself to travel the world in search for the answers. I've spoken with hundreds of religious leaders, government officials, business executives, university professors, clinical physicians, technology experts, scientific researchers, prominent thinkers, professional wrestlers, amateur film makers, babbling toddlers, and their easily-outraged mothers, and one thing became unanimously and universally true: these were stupid f*cking questions.

But as I was thinking about it, I realized that a sandwich is not just a thing you eat, it's also a verb. You can eat a sandwich, but you can also sandwich something by enclosing it between something else. It's like how painting is also a verb and a noun. If I drew with crayons onto a canvas, it would not qualify as a painting because the portrait was not painted onto there. It's instead a drawing. And just as there are many different types of sandwiches, there are different types of paintings. I can paint using a brush, using my fingers, using someone else's severed fingers, using a computer program, or using other objects like sponges or rollers or even sandwiches themselves. The end result is still a painting.

So if I lay on a couch, I can become sandwiched between two pillows. If I motorboat someone, my face can become sandwiched between their fun-bags. Likewise, you can sandwich a hot dog wiener between the two sides of the hot dog bun, thus making a hot dog a sandwich.

Anyways, thanks for attending my TED Talk