Is a Hamburger a Sandwich?

This is such a wonderfully inane topic that has spawned a 4000 post thread on my message board.  Its great because people get to be the cliche' internet arguer on something that inherently doesn't matter.  I mean really really doesn't matter; it matters less than if Justin Bieber is bigger than Kurt Cobain.   Clearly it's Cobain, coming in at 5'7", but that can change in a couple years as Bieber (5'5") grows up.

So the 3 broad arguments that have been recycled

Populist

This is the primary argument of the Burger Separatists.  No one in their right mind EVER orders a hamburger sandwich.  Just listen to Morgan and Chuck in Good Will Hunting sound like total idjits.

 

Seriously, who calls a burger a sandwich?  I don't.  The only time I would ever do that is ironically and at a restaurant one of my message board friends owns, just to see if he would really refuse me service or would we get a good laugh out of it.

This is kind of a hard argument to counter because you come off as the guy who eliminates Scrabble words because they aren't in the dictionary.  But common usage does not equate reality.  It's like knuckleheads that dismiss evolution as 'only a theory'.  Look up theory in the dictionary sometime genius.  There is a difference between a scientific theory and a conjectural theory.

Speaking of Evolution

The most compelling argument of the Burger Separatists is that a burger may have once been a sandwich but after several generations of eating them, they have evolved into their own class of cuisine.

This is completely anecdotal and inconclusive to boot.   Burger Deniers have linked menu's of several restaurants that list burgers and sandwiches in the same section, sometimes only with the heading of sandwiches!  Burger Separatists counter with their own string of menus.  Both sides have conducted unscientific polls and asked food bloggers with the mixed results continuing.  

Construction  

This is the go to move for the Burger Deniers.   A sandwich is some kind of filling, generally but not limited to meat, surrounded by slices of bread.  

Or as a dictionary defines it

1.  two or more slices of bread or the like with a layer of meat, fish, cheese, etc., between each pair.

While a hamburger bun is not strictly bread, it certainly is 'or the like' since it is also baked flour and yeast.  So unless you are eating a patty plain, and I pity you if that's the case, then a hamburger must be a sandwich.


Which Internet Cliche' was Darren?

I was argue with a fencepost guy.  A burger is a sandwich, but I didn't argue that way for months simply because I wanted to continue stirring the pot.