Re: CHAT: corn (was: [CHAT] Aussie terminology question)

On 9 Feb 2005, at 6.43 pm, Ray Brown wrote:

> On Tuesday, February 8, 2005, at 07:36 , Tristan McLeay wrote:
>
>> On 8 Feb 2005, at 6.26 pm, Ray Brown wrote:
>>
>>> On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 10:20 , Philip Newton wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>> I daresay that "a cornfield" would be interpreted as a field of
>>>> wheat
>>>> in England,
>>>
>>> I would be  :)
>>
>> *You* would be interpreted as a field of wheat in England? Those
>> Englishfolk are weirder than I thought :)
>
> Typo for "It"   :)
Oh, and here was me preparing an English->Australian dictionary
including an entry 'Ray Brown' :(

>> But the real question is, that I've wanted to know the answer for,
>> does
>> 'corn' in everyday speech of your everyday urban English person refer
>> to wheat or maize?
>
> Wheat.
Okay, thanks.

> Maize is also known as 'sweet corn' or 'corn on the cob' when eaten
> by humans. But when grown as cattle-feed it's always maize.
Oh, is that all sweet corn was? I'd always presumed it was a special
sort of (maize) corn, and the one preferred by people. Just like
there's lots of forms of apples. It's more than frequently enough
called 'sweet corn' here...

>> ('Cornfield' could be interpreted as a compound ...
>> 'cornflour' is wheat starch in Australia, in spite of the definition
>> of
>> 'corn'.)
>
> AFAIK it is actually maize flour (it's certainly not wheat flour) - but
> the packet in my kitchen is strangely silent about the origin of the
> flour.
Hmm, well the only packet I've thoroughly investigated mostly
definitely said 'Prepared from wheat'---a source of much confusion at
the time (I was maybe 12ish), and the answer to which I didn't remember
till I googled for 'conflour wheat' on the Internet in preparing the
message, which if I interpret them correctly seems to show two
definitions: one that it's a fine flour derived from corn, and the
other that it can be derived from wheat, this latter definition (or
implications of it) seem to be common on sites ending in .au though, in
the first page. Perhaps there's a specific Australian definition and
it's out to confuse everyone! (I've ignored the recipe results.)

--
Tristan.

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