Genericness

[Donald M. Lance]

The dining car of Amtrak from KC to Chicago features "UNholey bagels." This is a marketing
name for a pastry about 3/4 the diameter of a traditional bagel. It is made of bagel dough
(or bagel-like it you're a purist) with no hole, has a bagel-like exterior, and is
"filled" with a dab of cream cheese.  It's pretty good.  They also have one with cinnamon
but I didn't try it.  It didn't occur to me to save the wrapper, so I can't tell you
anything more.

It is interesting that 'bagel' rather than otherwise-perhaps-expected 'doughnut' was
chosen in tennis to refer to the shape of zero.  The pastry on Amtrak uses the term to
refer to the dough, and grocery stores all over the country sell "bagels" that are larger
than the traditional ones, may have light and fluffy texture, and may be gussied up in a
variety of ways -- and the grocers presume to call them bagels because of their shape.

DMLance

Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> TRIPLE BAGEL
>
>      "Triple bagel" just doesn't sound kosher to me.
>      Goose eggs, zeroes, sweep--but bagels?  In tennis?  I had a friend who
> knew someone who wrote Associated Press sports, and that person tried
> coinages like this.  Has anyone heard this before?
>      From the New York Post, 21 January 2000, pg. 69, cols. 6-7:
>
> _Aussie teen whiz gets_
> _close to "triple bagel"_
>      MELBOURNE (AP)--Lleyton Hewitt has won two tournaments and 12 matches in
> a row.  In his latest feat, the Australian teen-ager came within one game of
> a triple bagel in a Grand Slam tennis tournament.
>      Hewitt led 6-0, 6-0, 4-0 before Spain's Alex Coretja, ranked as high as
> No. 2 last year, put together enough good shots to win one game yesterday in
> their second-round match at the Australian Open.
>      Only five triple bagels have been recorded at Grand Slams in the
> 32-year-old open era, and none at the Australian Open.  The most recent came
> when Sergi Bruguera shut out Thierry Champion at the 1993 French Open. (...)