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

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 9, 2005, 7:43
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" :)
> 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. 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.
> ('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. =============================================== On Tuesday, February 8, 2005, at 04:35 , Roger Mills wrote:
> I was almost into adulthood before I learned the British usage of "corn";
There isn't a uniform British use. In England & Wales it's "wheat", but north of the border in Scotland it's "oats". Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com =============================================== Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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Tristan McLeay <conlang@...>