By BARRETT NEWKIRK

Just like the debate surrounding glazed versus plain, the proper spelling of the word describing edible fried rings of cake is mostly a matter of personal taste.

Bob Nowatzki, an English professor at Ball State University who co-hosts the language show "Word Nerds" on Indiana Public Radio, could only theorize about why the food item goes by two different common spellings.

“I think it got changed because it’s simpler to spell,” he said. “Dropping the u-g-h kind of makes sense phonetically.”

By checking with The Oxford English Dictionary, Nowatzki learned that the earliest known use of the shorter spelling was in 1949, but it wasn’t in reference to food.

The earliest use of “doughnut” was by American author Washington Irving in 1809. The word originally described pieces of dough shaped into small balls that resembled nuts, according to the dictionary.

Nowatzki said Dunkin’ Donuts, which was founded in 1950, may have popularized the shorter spelling as it increased its presence around the U.S.

Most dictionaries now list both spellings, but “donut” is sometimes given a secondary listing.

The Associated Press still prefers the longer spelling, so it’s most likely to appear in print media, but Nowatzki said either option works in most cases.

“The dictionary kind of treats the shorter word as secondary, which makes sense because it came later,” he said. “I think ‘donut’ has been around for long enough that it seems like it’s at about the same level of saturation as the longer word.”