A Jewish food and grammar lesson from The Forward 

Rashi Fein from Boston writes:

“For some years I have had a dispute with a dear friend. I say that the plural of bagel is bagel. He says that the plural of bagel is bagels. I explain my position by arguing that bagel is a Yiddish word and that ‘two bagels’ in Yiddish would be tsvey beygl. He says that in English the plural has to be bagels. Who is right? Is there some general rule that might apply?”

There is indeed a general rule, and it says that Mr. Fein is wrong and his friend — as well, I might say, as the rest of us who say “bagels” when speaking English — is right. Simply stated, the rule is this: When a word borrowed from a foreign language has become domesticated in the borrowing language, the speakers of which are no longer conscious of its foreign origins, it obeys all the borrowing language’s grammatical rules, including those governing the formation of plurals.

This is why English speakers say “kindergartens” and “cappuccinos” instead of “kindergerten” and “cappuccini,” as they would be required to do, using the German and Italian plural forms, if Mr. Fein were to have his way. It is also why — if they are among the few who use such terms — they say “gastarbeiter” and “gelati” rather than “gastarbeiters” and “gelatos,” since they quite rightly sense that German Gastarbeiter, “foreign worker,” and Italian gelato, Italian-style ice cream or ices, have not been widely accepted as English words. And since “bagel” is clearly in the category of “kindergarten” rather than that of “gastarbeiter,” it should be pluralized in the English fashion.

Read the whole response here.