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If I ordered a chicken burger and got a chicken sandwich, I would be a bit miffed.

I think there's an element of expectation-setting when we're talking about authenticity. Personally, I wouldn't sweat authenticity too much. There's excellent food to be had by mixing and remixing dishes.

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Just asking - in your mind what is the difference between a chicken burger and a chicken sandwich? We Aussies argue with yanks that a burger is made by the bun and a sandwich is made by the two slices of bread.

In the US, "Burger" generally refers to ground meat patty, "hamburger" can mean either the sandwich or the ground beef itself. If you bought a pound of ground beef at the store, you might say you bought "a pound of hamburger." Turkey burgers, chicken burgers, bison burgers, etc all focus on the idea that it's the ground meat patty that makes them a burger. Most Americans (or at least me) would say a patty melt is a type of burger, because it has beef burger patties, despite not being on a bun.

So chicken sandwiches, pork sandwiches, and steak sandwiches, which are all common here and typically served on buns, aren't considered burgers because the meat isn't ground.

It's so thoroughly thought of this way here that that the product "hamburger helper" doesn't involve bread or sandwiches whatsoever: it's a box of pre-portioned ingredients, maybe with pasta or rice, that you cook with with ground beef in a pot or skillet.

Edit: old timey American cartoons used to refer to "hamburger sandwiches" which were by all accounts the same as burgers today; the "sandwich" part got lost sometime before it got to Australia, i guess.

American here, minced/ground chicken and I breaded would make it a burger. Otherwise it’s a sandwich. Provided it is not the traditional recipe from Chickenburg of course

I prefer our definition, but I appreciate your specificity.

Well you Aussies also put hot dogs and sprinkles on white bread. So is fairy bread a sandwich and (American) hot dogs a burger and a sausage sizzle a sandwich?

Sausage on bread is what it’s called, we’d never call that a hotdog.

And fairy bread is just fairy bread, you’re not putting two slices together.

I think that makes sense. I suspect you probably wouldn't call a bacon butty/bap/roll a burger either. Same for pani ca meusa, torta, and cemita.

Basically the Aussies picked up burger as from American influence, changed the meaning, then decided that the yanks defined it wrong. Meanwhile all the other bun based sandwiches get to keep the meaning. That said... the international chains haven't helped the matter.

Probably call a bacon butty a bacon roll(from breadroll - what it’s put on).

I’m not claiming anyone’s wrong, it’s just what society you grow up in deem it to be.

I think it's that too. Burger = burger buns, sandwich = bread

I am living in Australia though so might be biased here