What does ‘bun’ mean to you?

A recent poll on OxfordDictionaries.com showed that 37% of our users would call a bread roll a bun, which makes it second only to roll as the most common way to say this. This is not, to me, what a bun would be, and so naively—with no concept of the can of worms I was opening—I asked a couple of colleagues what sort of food they think a bun is.

Bread or cake?

To one of my colleagues (a person who grew up in the North of England, as I did), a bun is a fairy cake, which was the answer I was hoping for. To my other colleague (from Canada) this was completely unheard of: a bun is only ever a bread roll, as our poll results support. Two American colleagues overheard the discussion and weighed in that a bun is definitely bread. As I was asking, I found that fairy cake was clearly inadequate to describe what I was picturing, because fairy cake itself is regional. I asked vaguely if you would eat it from a paper case, before relenting to using the word cupcake, which still has an American sound to my ears despite the evidence of over 2,000 hits in the New Monitor Corpus for British English speakers suggesting otherwise. I could also test my theory by checking people’s reaction to chocolate bun, which is a concept that is fine for a sponge cake, but quite a bit more experimental for a bread roll. One Scottish colleague was disgusted at the very idea.

Over the course of the day, I asked different co-workers for their views, making up a mental map of where the dividing lines fell. In broad sweeps, I found that those from the South of England, those from Scotland, and those from North America said that a bun was bread (or simply and emphatically ‘not cake’). Many would allow that it could be sweet (as in a hot cross bun, or Chelsea bun) but these are made with dough, so they are in essence a sweet bread and not a cake. Most of those from the North of England fell into the cake side of things, though there was some variation in the answers I got from Yorkshire folk. My rather small sample size of one from Ireland agreed with the North of England that a bun is a cake. This was backed up by evidence from the Oxford English Corpus, where over a third of uses of bun had them being explicitly included with cakes or desserts for Irish speakers.

Not as simple as it appears

I found a lot of hesitation in answering, “If I offered you a bun, what would you be eating?”. People had to think for a moment; it was not like scone as in gone or scone as in cone, where everyone has picked their side of the fence long ago. There were a lot of qualifications. “If you say cinnamon bun, then it’s sweet like a cake”, or “A hamburger bun is bread, but I’d have to say hamburger, not just bun”. When the other option was revealed, I found that some became more attached to their answer: “It might not be bread exactly, but it would never be a fairy cake!” or “I’d never put currants in it!”. It is possible that this reluctance was because I was largely asking fellow lexicographers, who know by now that any question about a word’s meaning is not as simple as it appears.

As with all debates concerning regional varieties, passions flared, and so we turned to the dictionaries at our disposal to settle the matter. OxfordDictionaries.com has three different senses: one which uses the word cake; one which uses the word bread; and one which uses both words. A tie, then. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has a lengthy definition which covers the spectrum of uses, and notes that in the earlier examples that have been found (dating all the way back to the 14^th century) we can’t be sure which was meant by the authors. We were all of us right, then, and so none can be declared the ultimate winner. No one could even say, “Ah, but mine came first!”, which is a spurious victory at any rate, no matter how satisfying.

The advantage of numbers

Having North America weighing in on the side of bread certainly gives that team the advantage of numbers. I wonder if this is why a search for pictures online showed me bread roll after bread roll, or if it is just that those who agree with me that a bun is a small cake are not taking photos to prove it. It is clear to me that my meaning of bun is very much a minority view, and I suspect that I know how opening this question to you, dear reader, will go, and that it won’t be in my favour. My curiosity gets the better of me, though, so I am asking regardless. If I hear just a few more voices crying “Cake!” I will feel vindicated.

Let us know how you voted and where you’re from in the comment section!

The opinions and other information contained in OxfordWords blog posts and comments do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Oxford University Press.

Author

Rebecca Juganaru

Rebecca Juganaru is a senior assistant editor for Oxford Dictionaries.
Published

September 3 / 2015
Categories
- Varieties of English
Tags

bread, bun, cake, dialect, food, poll, regional English

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Ashleigh

Newcastle, UK – cake! I’d also say ‘bread bun’ but it would have to have the word ‘bread’ before it…
- Anne Hazlewood
  
  Exactly!
Kim Siever

Canadian here, and I say bun. Something to keep in mind, that in my experience, Americans are more likely to use the word “roll”, and that usage is sneaking into Canada. “Bun” may become extinct in another generation or two.
Grraargh

I’m from Devon, and a bun is cake-like!
Etyman

From Lancashire, UK but living in Ohio, USA for 20 years: A “bun” was always a cake. This was reinforced by my mother and grandmother who called them “cakey buns” within our family. In the US, “buns” are very different and when one my female colleagues made some cakes recently, I told everyone to “go and check out her buns.” Fortunately I was able to avoid a sexual harassment suit on the basis that I’m a foreigner ;)
Anne Hazlewood

Buns are small cakes while bread buns (or baps) are small, flat bread rolls. In the north east of England, anyway.
Anita

I am South African and consider a bun to be a sweet yeast bread, possibly iced, or with raisins, currants and/or spice added. What I would call a roll is, however, known as a bread roll or a bun by some people. Not sure if this is particularly related to region or culture, but I suspect it is more age related and therefore probably US influenced.
- Sol Pearson
  
  I am also South African, and a bun is as in a Burger bun for hamburgers. We also have as Anita described a Chelsea bun. In America you have a similar thing the Cinnabun, I think. For me a roll is as in hotdog roll.
  - Allen Williams
    
    The “hot dog roll” is surely a long “bridge roll” in West Yorkshire terminology.
  - Coyote
    
    I seem to recall that Cinnabun is (was?) a company (and/or a product name of said company) but they sell cinnamon rolls? I haven’t seen references to them in years so maybe I’m wrong (and maybe some do refer to the food as cinnabuns though; I wouldn’t be surprised and I would tell others asking me that they should ask someone else who actually has a real life).
Allen Williams

A bun is a small sweet sponge-based cake, intended for consumption by an individual, often, but not necessarily, in a paper case. They may be wholly or partially iced. If in a paper case, “fairy cake” is also acceptable. I would never use the term “cupcake”. A small, spheroid, bread item is a “cob” if crusty, and a “bread roll” if soft. A flattish, circular plain bread item about six inches in diameter is a ”tea cake” (a “bap” if significantly smaller or bigger), while similar containing dried fruit is a “fruit tea cake” (lovely split in twain and toasted, with butter). I live now in Altrincham, Cheshire, UK, and I have to combat the local use of “barm” to mean “tea cake” and they also have this thing called an “oven bottom cake” which is similar to a tea cake, but somehow baked so as not to have so pronounced a flat bottom.

I was brought up in Croydon, Surrey, UK, but most of my life has been spent in West Yorkshire, and my terminology accords with usage in and around Huddersfield. As my mother was from South Yorkshire, I presume what I have always said (derived from her, since my father was a Welsh speaker) also accords with usage around Mexborough and Rotherham. In my early years I do remember having to ask for “plain tea cakes” or “bread cakes” in shops when I wanted tea cakes in the Croydon area, but otherwise managed with the proper terminology quite well. Not so in the Manchester area, where I usually have to point or explain what I want, because the locals are a bit dim.

“Barm” is no sort of baked product to me: it is merely an alternative word for yeast.

To add to the confusion are Eccles Cakes and Chorley Cakes, which aren’t cakes at all: they are bun-sized dried fruit pastries, while Chelsea Buns are seasoned and iced sweet bread products..
Laura R

I’m from Victoria, Australia and I agree with Anita in that when I hear ‘bun’ I think of what we in Australia call ‘Boston bun’ (not sure if from Boston, also sounds like what is referred to below as a ‘Chelsea bun’), which is a sweet, bready loaf with sultanas, currants, cinnamon, spices and icing on top (white or pink), often eaten sliced with butter. A bread roll is a ‘roll’, although if it were the soft, white, fluffy bread, as used for hamburgers or hotdogs, I would call it a bun. The cake bun is not a thing here. I’ve never heard anyone call a cupcake a ‘bun’, we don’t use ‘fairy cake’ here either, although it would be nice if we did :)
Xenobio

I’m Malaysian. I would think most Malaysians regard “bun” to mean a roughly hand-sized object made of bread, either sweet or savoury, including the kind you put burgers and sausages in, but DEFINITELY not cake. We generally don’t use the word “roll” for spheroid or ovoid baked goods, only for things which are visibly spiralform like Swiss rolls.
Anon

Sweet bread, from Bedfordshire, UK. Also lends its name to a hairstyle!
Coyote

Sweet bread, US (but I like to use my Scottish name). But I’m somewhat mixed on the matter because I don’t have a single friend from here – mostly Dutch, some British, one Irish and one Australian (who was actually originally from England). Ironically none from Scotland (not in a long time, anyway). Americanised English doesn’t do it for me (though inevitably some of it will show itself because of location). Maybe Americanised things don’t do it for me, period (yes, that was very much intended).

I also think of a cinnamon bun (maybe that’s why I think of sweet bread?), which some might also call ‘cinnamon rolls’ (I’ve used both). But I’ve never thought of cake of any kind (although I seem to recall being told by at least someone that a bun could also be cake – I’ve just never used it in the same sense).

Of course, ‘bun’ by itself is different from specific types of buns (e.g. hamburger bun) where you might expect something else entirely. This only goes to show just how language can make perfect sense and no sense – simultaneously. That means that essentially, bun by itself is too ambiguous to really worry about much (unless you’re after the statistics – which of course is the point here, I think).