time to move on to 2026 and hook it up to an automated roller grill, or some other fantastic fashion of heating up and assembling the hot dog.

Approaching middle age, I'm grateful that there still seems to be a supply in the world of such wondrous creations as this, previously unknown to me.

However, I was disappointed that the article conspicuously omitted the story of the original invention.

Anyway, here's the patent ("Process for propelling foodstuffs or the like into a crowd"): https://patents.google.com/patent/US5996568A/en

> I have a lot of German background

If you didn't read the rest of the article, that's how you always know they're american

That name is super-strange.

"Der Viener Schlinger".

So ... "Der" is german, we can translate this into "The".

"Schlinger" is a strange word; there is Schlinge in german, which could be translated as loop, snare or, better, a sling. You can see how similar sling is to Schling or vice versa here. To sling ... may also be herumschlingen, a snake may have a similar movement like that; curvy movement aka not linear or so. Makes sense for a sling that throws stuff about, see the slingshot channel or Tod's Workshop. So far this is a bit strange, but not totally strange.

But next comes ... "Viener". This is VERY strange. Where does this word originate? My first impression was it was from Vienna, a city; the german name for the city is "Wien", and if you replace the V here with a W, then it would be "Wiener" (which in english would be viennese, but in local wording). So when I first read the three words, I thought this originated from Vienna ... but that makes no sense. It's from the USA. So Viener must mean something else. But then why it is "Schlinger" rather than "slinger" or sling"? And why the name "Der"? I mean that only makes sense for a german word. Now I am very confused.

I also don't recall any meat cannon as a tradition in central Europe either, so that makes no sense either. Who coined that word here, anyway?