All Amaricans are German mayors

You’re both right! But- also not! Strap yourselves in. You do know that I love language.

Fletcher Davis is a Texan man who many long considered the “inventor” of the “hamburger.” However- Davis’s credited date of invention was disproven by the fact that the term “Hamburger” was found in a dictionary predating Davis’s use of the word. Many others have made claims to being the inventor of the “Hamburger” with some more credible than others- Charlie Nagreen aka “hamburger Charlie” even has statues made in his honor! Nagreen says that at a state fair in 1885 that he was selling meatballs, but no one wanted to stop and eat- so he threw them in between some bread to make them portable.

Another “Charlie,” Frank Charles Menches, ALSO in 1885 sold a hamburger dish in a New York fair- claiming that he just decided to make a ground beef sandwich. Menches claims that it is named after Hamburg New York- and not Hamburg Germany. But the earliest dictionary recording of the word is 1884- so Hamburgers already existed.

The dish “Hamburg sausage” served in a toasted bun- was included in a cookbook in 1758- and in essence a “hamburger” is a sausage without the casing- ground meat and spices etc. So many point to this dish as the origin of the sandwich. Tales abound that German sailors popularized the dish in the port of Hamburg to others who took it home; or that German travelers in Asia picked up the idea and so on.

A major problem is- even when words SEEM obviously related- they are often not and any relation is a coincidence- so the presence of previous recipes with “Hamburg” in the name isn’t proof the hamburger is named after those dishes or even Hamburg Germany. Hamburg New York was founded in 1812- so based on the evidence we have it IS possible the dish is named after the city in New York-

In German- a citizen of Hamburg is a Hamburger in German (Ich bin Hamburger- or ich bin ein Hamburger- the former is clearer in writing that you aren’t talking about food, if that needed specified... but in German- the city name is pronounced differently than the food- so generally not a problem in speech.)

And there in May lie a piece of the puzzle. The fact the food bake is not pronounced as the city name- indicates that adding the “er” to denote origin- would likely see the food pronounced as the city. Of course that isn’t conclusive, and the different pronunciation could have evolved in German to denote a different item. But it’s also possible that the “er” was added in English- as a common English suffix for colloquial words and nick names.

But as to “inventing” the dish... people world wide have been grinding up meat for some time, and placing meat on bread is much older than the burger. There’s also a phenomenon of concurrent thought. We say “so and so invented this or that..” but so and so is who is CREDITED. Someone else may have invented before them, and people weren’t aware, of the later inventor had better press. Edison and Tesla are a popular example.

But if something is a good idea- it stands to reason that multiple people around the world with think of the same idea independently. We see this in culture and technology- where cultures separated and isolated from each other have many similar ideas and often around the same time.

Take for example- if you’d never seen a chair- you might think it would be nice to have a place to sit that was ergonomic and on demand. You might then decide it would be better with padding, upholstery- and then as humans do you may decide to decorate it, colors and carvings and or are designs and such to make it more aesthetically pleasing or show status or craftsmanship. In your mind- you invented the chair. And you did! You didn’t copy- you had no knowledge of chairs. It was an independent idea. You weren’t the FIRST, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t invent the idea yourself.

Going back to electricity- archeologists have found batteries made in antiquity. Chemical batteries made in pots. It is believed they were used for religious or “magic” type rites or demonstrations. So anyone claiming to “discover” or “harness” electricity in the last few centuries is a millennia or so too late- but they didn’t know about these ancient, foreign, and forgotten discoveries.

So who invented the hamburger? How was it named? Slightly different questions. Most people want to know who was the first person to place ground beef on a bun and call it a “hamburger.” That we will probably never know- but the “first” person isn’t likely who would get credit anyway- if you start calling French fires “tater sticks” and no one else does.... being the first is irrelevant. There is a point where a new word goes from something that is uttered by one person- and becomes a word embraced in language.

The “gif” is a classic example that was recently a popular debate topic. Those letters- g i f became a word. That word- people still disagree on how to pronounce it- the creator has at times validated either- but g i f wasn’t a proper noun- it was a file type- so that doesn’t even matter because it isn’t branding so the person who put the letters together doesn’t dictate how English pronunciation rules word do they? It is a little different on proper nouns of course.

So who started calling the g i f the “gif?” In reality- it probably wasn’t anyone in particular. It was everyone. People at home and in the office- they just called it a “gif” whichever way they pronounced it- hence the multiple pronunciations- that is a word that we clearly inherited through reading instead of speaking, and people spoke it as they read it, and others hearing them speak it copied.

With Hamburger- we likely obviously didn’t get the word from an acronym or such- but... the same does applies that it may not have a singular origin in that sense. To the point that US inventions or any country really- often use foreign sounding words for aesthetics or perception etc- words too are often localizations or mispronunciations or mishearing of foreign or unknown words. So “hamburger” may have nothing to do with Ham, or Germany, or New York or any of it. For all we know it was a word from another country that someone heard wrong or couldn’t grasp the sounds of the language so to them it sounded like a more familiar word or sounds- and poof. Hamburger.

It is a great mystery unlikely to be solved, but with great historical research one might be able to uncover earlier usages in writing, and perhaps even define a location where earliest records exist, and until and unless disproven- people would likely call that the origin.

But- many people can claim to have invented the hamburger or even the word, and not be wrong but not be the originator of the word/dish, not necessarily be the one who popularized the word. If your great great great grandma made little cakes she called twinkies well before the snack food hit shelves- when people say “Twinkie” they aren’t talking about your grandmas cakes. They probably don’t know they existed. So being the FIRST person is arguably less important and afar harder to prove or discover than who popularized a term in the vocabulary- although the latter can be darn near impossible especially because of the former.

Honestly, I didn't read all of this, I just wanna correct the thing about Hamburger
being pronounced differently in German wether it's related to a Hamburg citizen or the food.
A non-english speaking German and even the majority of those who speak English will pronounce it exactly the same. As language is altering, today actually only elderly folks refer to the sandwich as Hamburger, the rest calls it Burger with the English pronunciation.

Lol. Thank you. I’m old so it wouldn’t surprise me German has changed quite a bit- English has too since when I was young. And of course not living in Germany makes my experiences limited compared to yours. I will not edit the original so that the mistake and response are preserved for posterity- but I will here record that I have made an error and that at the very least, my statements on German pronunciation should be suspect as I am by far not an expert on the language, if at best maybe cringingly passable to a small child’s ear.