So, Mrs. Lebeef and myself were driving home last night when this little discussion popped up:
Is a hot dog just the dog, or does it take a bun to make it a hot dog?
Rather, as she asserted, the meat itself is just the weiner, the bun makes it a hot dog. I stated my belief that the hotdog was the meat, and the bun is irrelevant.
Many points and counterpoints were traded, and the discussion ended with “Yeah, so’s your face!”
Nothing resolved.
What say the Dope?
I’d say the bun and the sausage. The sausage on its own is a sausage.
Yeah, by itself the sausage bit is just a Frank. It takes a bun to make a hot dog.
It completely depends on whether you consider a “hot dog” to be an ingredient or a dish.
I’ll go with the OP and say the meat alone constitutes a “hot dog.” Otherwise, there would be no need to specify “hot dog buns” on the package instead of just “buns.”
My opinion – the only one that counts – is that Mrs. lebeef is a wise and insightful woman who married the wrong guy.
An addendum, though – it’s not really a hot dog until it has mustard on it.
They’re called “Hot dog buns” because you use them to make a hot dog. Just like hamburger buns are used to make hamburgers, and not, say, french toast. 
One more vote for bun and tube steak. I don’t know the generic term for these synonymous do-funnies (sausage is too broad because of all the non-hotdog ones):
Weiner
Frankfurter
Bratwurst
Coney
others I can’t recall at the moment…
My “hotdog” must also have:
Mustard
Relish
Chopped onions
I will accept other condiments that I hear are no-no material for others:
Mayonnaise
Ketchup
Chili
But as long as it’s a bun and Weinie, it’s a hotdog for me.
Off-topic: anybody who’s showboating, grandstanding, bragging, or otherwise taking up conversation space that should by all rights be mine!
The hot dog and the weiner are interchangeable, a good hot dog can be had on a variety of breads or none at all. IMHO it needs an excellent non-bean chili.
True, but you can put another type of sausage in it and it’s no longer a “hot dog.” It’s the meat that defines what it is.
Here is my thought…
A hot dog in a bun is of course a hot dog. But as a kid, my mom would sometimes make hot dogs with wonder bread as the bun. That was still a hot dog. As a student, I would sometimes chop up a hot dog to put into my Ramen, you know to fancy it up.
Wiki agrees with me!
MMMmmmm. Meat Slurry.
Oh, and TDN,she is indeed a wise, wonderful woman who is obviously paying some kind of karmic debt by marrying me.
I’m gonna vote for “the meat.” We always refer to “putting some chopped hot dogs into” whatever, so the meat is the thing.
The meat is the “hot dog”. My mom would often bake hot dogs in crescent rolls with a slice of Velveeta. They were still hot dogs to us.
The meat is the “hot dog”. What else should I call the thing I cut up and put into my mac n’ cheese. I certainly ain’t putting no bread in there.
Concur.
I say bun+wiener makes a hot dog. A wiener with chili sauce on it on a plate isn’t chili dog. A wiener with cheese on it on a plate isn’t a cheese dog. We don’t call chopped wieners and baked beans “beanie-doggies.” There is something about the combination of bun and wiener which makes it a hot dog. Guinness recognizes the World’s longest hot dog as both meat and bun.
Enjoy,
Steven
On a casual perusal, it seems most of the major brands (Hebrew National, Nathan’s, Oscar Meyer, Ball Park) call them Franks on the package. Armour, Gwaltney and some others call them Hot Dogs.
I use the word hot dog when referring to the meat, but I can see how this is probably incorrect.
At least I don’t put ketchup on the damn things, whatever you want to call them. 
Depends on the context. Kind of like how the word “hamburger” can refer to the meat, or the sandwich made from the meat (though in the latter case it’s a hamburger).
By the way, why is wiener = frankfurter? Wien & Frankfurt are two completely different cities.
I’ve got this fancy book that lists words and phrases in an order corresponding to the lexicographical ordering of the ASCII values of their letter sequences, and then provides definitions of them in order of descending commonness of use.
My book says a hot dog is a frankfurter first, and a sandwich made with a frankfurter second. All is right in the world.
A hot dog is, since I was a kid, only a real hot dog if it’s in a hot dog bun.
The tubular meat therein contained is a “wienie” if standing alone. As in…my friend’s mom used to make mac and cheese and add wienies and mustard to it as a kind of ghetto casserole.
The bun is integral to the term “hot dog.”
Can I have one now? with mustard and dill relish?
That doesn’t sound like hot dogs at all so much as Pigs In A Blanket, an entirely different dish.
