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

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.
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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
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
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as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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