Bread

[petesgrayz]

Why is a slice of bread called a round when it is not nessecarily round.

[mike11111]

One of the meanings of "round" is complete, so a round of bread is a whole slice as opposed to half a slice. Similarly a round of sandwiches is made with two whole slices of bread.

[stewey]

Perhaps in the old days, the bread maker just shaped the dough by hand into a sort of ball-shaped mass. Then when it was baked and cut you had a round shaped hunk of bread. Hence "round'......Just a thought.

[Quizmonster]

"A couple of rounds of buttered toast." These words are from Dickens' Barbaby Rudge, published in 1840, and they are the earliest recorded use of the word 'round' in this way according to The Oxford English Dictionary. So, it seems that the words "the old days" don't really apply.

[stewey]

Qm, you really haven't answered the question: you merely mentioned the first time that the expression was supposedly used in print.

[Quizmonster]

Stewey, I wasn't trying to answer the QUESTION as such, but responding to what YOU said about it. When you referred to "the old days", I imagined you were referring to the 14th/15th centuries or thereabouts. My answer was simply pointing out that nobody had ever spoken/written about a 'round' of bread...as far as the record shows...before the mid-19th century.
Commercial bakeries already existed in that century; in fact Hovis were selling a million loaves a week before it ended. Accordingly, I guess we were beyond the days of bakers just chucking a lump of dough in the oven!
The obvious problem with doing that would be that, as soon as he placed the spherical lump on a baking-tray, it would flop down into a flattish, round shape. When it came out, it would be round, but - as people don't slice bread horizontally - the slices would be long and vaguely elliptical and far from round. Putting the dough in a baking-tin would produce slices even less round, as five of the six 'faces' would be flat!
As a matter of interest, the phrase 'round of beef' goes back as far as the 1600s. Clearly, a cylindrical joint such as a piece of leg would remain cylindrical even after cooking and thus produce round slices.
My overall point is that I do not believe the word 'round' in relation to bread or sandwiches can have anything to do with their actual shape, which was your point. But what the hey...I'm certainly not going to get into an argument about THAT!

[stewey]

OK.

[mike11111]

A very concise response to a very orotund answer. Surprised you got to the end of it without falling asleep.

[mike11111]

I'm getting interested now. How can something be "vaguely elliptical? Answers on a postcard, please.

[stewey]

Mike, I was responding to the sensibility of QM"s last sentence.

[mike11111]

And I was responding to the sensibility of QM's whole thesis! Never laughed so much since Molly's last post. "Vaguely elliptical," I ask you!

[askyourgran]

i remember the milk loaf Tonyted. It was round. I still make a round of toast, from a Toastie loaf.

[stewey]

In days of yore, a noble lord, hosting a sumptuous feast, is quoted as yelling "Wench, pass the bread around the table; a round of bread for my good guests, and never tarry or a pox upon thee!" And the good guests went from the feast and spread throughout the realm exclaiming about what a wonderous round of bread they had had.....Just a thought.

[mike11111]

You can still get milk loaves, a bit like Danish bread, stuffed with preservatives to make it last longer. p.s. doesn't seem right to me that someone other that Molly should post such a question. A case of confused.com, I think - time to go and talk to the meerkat.

[stewey]

Come on, Mike; stick a round a little longer:)

[mike11111]

"Never tarry or a pox upon thee!" Must remember that one next time I'm stuck in a queue at the supermarket checkout.

[anneasquith]

stewey, did you make that up ?

[stewey]

No, Anne; I just imagined it:) How ya doing?

[mike11111]

Of course he didn't make it up. It's fact. 'Tis a well-known fact that in the days of Good King Henry (the Eighth of that name), lusty buxom wenches would gladly pass their baps around the table, to the satisfaction of all as such partook thereof.

[stewey]

Did you know that in the old days, a large piece of stale bread was used as a plate. It was called a "trencher". The term "trencherman", meaning a person with a huge appetite, stems from that.