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Message: [QUOTE="OrangeChris, post: 281956, member: 922"] I've pronounced it "coney" since long before the 90's, as does everyone in my family, and we go back several generations in Syracuse. I've never really cared enough to get worked up in a debate about it though. Even though the overwhelming majority of the people I know pronounce it "coney," I still know enough that say "cooney" to believe it's an acceptable alternate pronunciation. I have noticed that the further out you get from downtown Syracuse, the more likely a person is to pronounce it "cooney" though. Absolutely no one I know that was born and raised in the city calls it that, a couple in the nearest suburbs [I]do[/I], and quite a few of my buddies that live waaaay out in the country call it "cooney." That's really not a large enough sample to draw any concrete conclusions though. Officially, [U]Heid's[/U] has said that the correct pronunciation is "coney," but to the best of my knowledge [U]Hofmann's[/U] has never weighed in on this. Hofmann's [I]has[/I] said that "coney" is an acceptable substitute for "snappy" when [I]written[/I], but they've never said if you could pronounce the word with an extra "O." It's really Hofmann's call though (not Heid's), and I can't help but think they would have spelled it "cooney" if they want it pronounced that way. The snappy griller did not originate on Coney Island though. However, that delightful part of Brooklyn is often cited as the birthplace of hot dogs [I]in America[/I]. As such, I've always believed the name "coney" to be a respectful nod to its hot dog ancestor, and not an acknowledgment that its actual unique recipe originated there. In other words, saying it's called a coney "because of Coney Island" would be correct, but saying it's called a coney "because it's [B]from[/B] Coney Island" would be wrong (because it's not). That's just always been my suspicion though, and certainly not historical fact. It would just strike me as too much of a coincidence for a white hot dog to have the moniker "coney" and not have that be some form of nod to the similarly named (disputed) birthplace of the American hot dog. [/QUOTE]

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