As one of my kids had a sandwich snack, I asked if they wanted to know the origin of the word sandwich. Loving words like their father, they were eager to hear the story. I told them what I had read a long time ago in a book I had as a kid called Don't You Believe It! by Gyles Brandreth.
According to the author, the story goes that a certain earl was very fond of gambling and he loved it so much that he would often skip meals so he could continue playing cards. Once when he was starving, he ordered his servants to prepare him snack by putting meat between two slices of bread. He wasn't the first person to do this; commoners had been doing to for a long time. But because he was infamous, his name somehow got attached to this form of food. He was the fourth Earl of Sandwich and so the food item became known as a sandwich.
My kids laughed at the story. "You mean if he had been from another town, our food would have had a different name?" one of them quipped.
"Yup," I told them. They laughed harder.
Later, I checked online and managed to find a fascinating article that covered in greater detail about the fourth Earl of Sandwich. I commend that to your reading. You might want to enjoy that article with a tasty snack—a sandwich perhaps?
