Antedating of "Bagel"

[Garson O'Toole]

Here is a 1902 citation for "Beigel" with a footnote in an article
about "Jewish London", but the word is not yet treated as an English
word. Yet this cite might be interesting because it helps to document
the transition of the word into the English language.

Cite: 1902, Living London edited by George R. Sims, Volume 2,  Jewish
London by S. Gelberg, Page 30, Column 2, Cassell and Company, Limited,
London. (Google Books full view)
http://books.google.com/books?id=-NY-AAAAYAAJ&q=beigel#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
>From break of day till the going-down of the sun rings the song of the
coster through its grimy streets. "Weiber, Weiber! Heimische Beigel!*
sing out the women, with handkerchief drawn tightly over head.

* "Ladies, ladies! rolls for sale just like those in our native land."
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 12:51 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Bagel"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've been looking into this for some time, but, so far, the progress is
> slow (too many people named Bagel or Beigel, plus Beigel's Disease).
> Still, I can do a bit better than 1916--and, in fact, possibly better
> still if the English original of the story can be found earlier, before
> it's placed in the anthology. I plan to scour the volume for more
> Yiddishisms as well.
>
> http://goo.gl/spOG9
> Yiddish Tales. Edited by Helena Frank. Philadelphia: 1912
> The Hole in a Beigel. By Tashrak (Israel Joseph Zevin). p. 309ff
>> TASHRAK
>> Pen name of Israel Joseph Zevin; born, 1872, in GoriGorkl, Government
>> of Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; came to New York in 1889; first
>> Yiddish sketch published in Jüdisches Tageblatt, 1893; first English
>> story in The American Hebrew, 1906; associate editor of Jüdisches
>> Tageblatt; writer of sketches, short stories, and biographies, in
>> Hebrew, Yiddish, and English; contributor to Ha-Ibri, Jewish Comment,
>> and numerous Yiddish periodicals; collected works, Geklibene
>> Schriften, 1 vol., New York, 1910, and Tashrak's Beste Erzählungen, 4
>> vols., New York, 1910.
>>
>> THE HOLE IN A BEIGEL
>> When I was a little Cheder-boy, my Rebbe, Bunem-Breine-Gite's, a
>> learned man, who was always tormenting me with Talmudical questions
>> and with riddles, once asked me, "What becomes of the hole in a
>> Beigel, when one has eaten the Beigel?"
>> This riddle, which seemed to me then very hard to solve, stuck in my
>> head, and I puzzled over it day and night. I often bought a Beigel,
>> took a bite out of it, and immediately replaced the bitten-out piece
>> with my hand, so that the hole should not escape. But when I had eaten
>> up the Beigel, the hole had somehow always disappeared, which used to
>> annoy me very much. I went about preoccupied, thought it over at
>> prayers and at lessons, till the Rebbe noticed that something was
>> wrong with me.
>
> This is just the first couple of grafs. Obviously, there are a few more
> pages to the story and the word "beigel" appears throughout.
>
> http://goo.gl/d0LUb
> Jewish Encyclopedia. Volume IV. 1912
> Cookery. p. 257/1
>> The village folk of some parts of eastern Europe have still another
>> form of soup, which is made by putting crisp "beigel" (round cracknel)
>> into hot water and adding butter.
>
> The volume has copyright dates of 1903, 1909 and 1912.
>
>     VS-)
>
> On 1/15/2012 10:07 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>> bagel (OED 1919)
>>
>> 1916 _Jewish Advocate_ 9 Mar. 3 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  He was her son.  She, Deborah, the beigel-seller.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>
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