I was visiting a garden friend yesterday and we had a bit of fun when four 15 year-old boys came over and asked us to do a "survey". What was the survey? What do you call the boiled then baked ring shaped bread? How do you pronounce it? What was the survey for? A summer school assignment.
The standard, Wiktionary pronunciation of “bagel” is /ˈbeɪɡəl/, [ˈbeɪɡɫ̩], while the nonstandard pronunciation has a slightly lowered vowel before the /g/, almost like [bæɡ]. My easy way to understand this description is to look at the words starting with bag and only bagel is pronounced differently than the rest of the words starting in bag. Our version seemed to coincide with the three of the four boys.
The three were delighted as the fourth friend pronounced it the non-standard way. This gave rise to mockery on their part. This turns out to be a favourite "peeve" area . I subsequently found an article that repeated how people seem to go so silly over the pronunciation of bagel. Who is right on this really? Where does bagel originate from linguistically? Where we are now might be an adaptation.
And it turns out to come from the Yiddish communities in Poland in the 1600s. I would never have guessed this. Earlier than that they were referred to in 13th century Arabic cookbooks as Ka'ak. Say that one.
Bagel turns out linguistlically to be derived from the Yiddish word beygal from the German dialect word beugel, meaning ring.
North America got bagels from Polish Jewish immigrants to New York City. There's something about them as they spread rapidly in the last quarter of the twentieth century with lots of variations known - New York style (malt, cold-fermented, boiled in salted water, then baked), Montreal stye (malt, sugar, no salt, boiled in honey-sweetened water, then baked in a wood-fired oven), St. Louis style ( a slicing method - 8 vertical slices rather than one horizontal one).
Did you know that they have tripled in size over time? They started out around 55 grams and are now 170 grams. And there are hundreds of bagel jokes, probably more.
What kind of bagel can fly? A plain bagel
Why do seagulls fly over the sea? If they flew over the bay, they would be bagels!
What does a bagel do when it is locked out of its house? Call a loxsmith
What do ghosts put on their bagels? Scream Cheese
What did the bagel say to the pastor? I’m holier than you
What does a bagel call its grandfather? Poppy!
Our picture today shows the detailed carving of a merry-go-round.
