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

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:00:15 +0000, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

>On Wednesday, February 9, 2005, at 09:31 , Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
>> A field
>> of rye could be a 'Kornfeld' (generally) as well as a 'Roggenfeld'
>> (specifically).
>
>Presumably, the default meaning of Kornfeld will be the dominant cereal
>crop of that particular area. Where Pascal lives, I guess it's wheat just
>as it is where I live.
That's the point exactly. Wheat is cleraly dominant here, so if you say
"Kornfeld" here, you would generally mean wheat. In the cases you don't, you
wouldn't say "Kornfeld", but rather specify the type of cereal, e.g.
"Roggenfeld" for a rye field.

>>>> Here, "korn" is used exclusively for wheat and *never* for maize. The
>>>> latter is always "Mais".
>
>Yep - same here   :)
Good to hear that :)

>>  But
>> there's also a 'Reiskorn' = a 'grain of rice' or a 'Maiskorn' -- 'a
>> grain(?)  of maize/corn'.
>
>We wouldn't say *'rice corn' and 'maize corn' would be understood as a
>collective mass noun - just making clear that the corn in question is
>maize, not wheat or oats.
Well, "Reiskorn" or "Maiskorn" is hardly used over here. Rather than saying
something like "You have a rice grain sticking to your cheek", one would say
"You have rice sticking to your cheek".

>>> FWIW, in Swedish, _korn_ is barley. Barley was the dominant cereal
>>> for so long that the original specific name _bjugg_ was simply
>>> replaced by the originally general _korn_.
>
>Yep - corn/korn by default is "the dominant cereal crop grown in area X".
Indeed, it is.

>> Ah, and was it 'cereal' before that generalisation or was it 'grain'?
>
>I think 'grain' (count noun) was the original meaning, before it became
>more commonly used as a mass noun meaning '[commonly grown] cereal'. The
>germain word (Gothic _kaurn_) is cognate with Latin _gra:num_.
Yes, looks like it.

>Although we often also use grain both as a count noun in English (e.g. a
>grain of barley, a grain of sand), it is also often used as a mass noun =
>corn (harvested, threshed & winnowed). But the Latin _granum_ is always a
>count noun.
I'd say it's primarily used as a mass noun over here, the use as count noun
is much less frequent.

--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Intergermansk: http://www.choton.org/ig/
Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/