> I asked several people in this area their opinion on this silly question, expecting a mix of answers. There was 100% agreement that cheese is a cheeseburger topping.

I have a strong suspicion that's because they simply haven't thought about it. Did you even introduce the hypothesis that a "hamburger topping" and a "cheeseburger topping" might be different?

Try asking your friends this. If you went into a restaurant and said, "I would like a cheeseburger," and the waiter said, "What would you like on it?" and you said, "The only toppings I would like are lettuce and mayonnaise, nothing else," then would the waiter be right or wrong to exclude the cheese?

> Ga"Will remember that in other parts of the world jelly is not a filling in a jelly-filled doughnut

Jelly is a filling in a "jelly-filled doughnut" by definition. It's more than an equation; it's an identity.

> turkey stuffing is not a stuffing in a stuffed turkey

Likewise...

> and beans are not a covering of rice covered with beans

...and likewise.

The equivalent phrasing for the burger example is "cheese is a topping of a cheese-topped burger," which is inarguably correct.

Of these three examples, the doughnut one is the only one that leads to a counterexample I have to admit is intriguing, just not as you phrased it. A "jelly-filled doughnut" is merely a doughnut with jelly as a filling, but a "jelly doughnut," ah, now we have something that could be considered analogous.

Is jelly a filling of a "jelly doughnut"? I would argue that jelly is *the* filling in what is known as a "jelly doughnut." The jelly is part of the doughnut, just as cheese is part of the cheeseburger. But the analogy breaks down somewhat simply because a "jelly doughnut" typically has no other optional components. People don't order "a jelly doughnut" and get asked "What do you want in that?" and answer things like "chocolate sauce, crushed grapes, and brown sugar," although now that I think about it, this would be a pretty good thing to try. But if this were commonplace, and you went into a doughnut shop and ordered "a jelly doughnut with the only fillings being chocolate sauce and brown sugar," you would expect to get a doughnut with jelly in there as well.

The thing is, in human language, unlike languages based on pure logic, the meanings we derive from it are the "best" meanings of all possibilities, those meanings that most closely match the language actually used. If I said, "I was too cold throughout the day," and then I said, "I snacked throughout the day," you would probably (and correctly) assume that I was cold the majority of the seconds in the day, while I probably only snacked periodically, not actually for a majority of the seconds in the day. The lesson here is that, within the constraints of the definitions of words (and sometimes even outside of them), the meanings of sentences become what makes the most human sense.

If we call jelly a "filling" of a jelly doughnut, there can be no mistaking the meaning. Whether it's technically correct or not, it is correct in human terms, because no issues, ambiguity, or impracticality results from it. There are no reasonable assumptions that are made from the statement that introduce confusion to what we're talking about. The question of whether jelly is part of a jelly doughnut or not doesn't come into play, because the only way a jelly doughnut comes is a doughnut with jelly inside it, period. There need not be a debate about whether jelly is a filling of a jelly doughnut, because it makes no difference, so a statement saying so is simply accepted without qualms.

But the word "topping" on a cheeseburger comes into play every time you order one from a non-fast food joint, and sometimes even then. If you call "cheese" a topping of a cheeseburger, suddenly you've equated "cheese" with "lettuce" and "ketchup" and "pickles" and whatever other optional ingredients might be added on top of the cheeseburger AFTER it has already been assembled. It means, when you order a cheeseburger with "only lettuce on top," you get beef and lettuce, no cheese at all.

But this does not happen. The differing answers you get when you directly propose the question of whether cheese is a cheeseburger topping or not may be a symptom of differing regional mindsets, but I submit that when it comes to practical use of these terms and this language, the division between "cheese" and "toppings" is made and assumed, everywhere, as I have already illustrated with my example of ordering a cheeseburger with an explicitly complete list of toppings that lacks cheese.

Find me somewhere where the common understanding of language is such that ordering a "cheeseburger with lettuce the only topping" is interpreted to mean "a hamburger and lettuce and no cheese," and I shall concede the point that the matter is entirely one of dialect.