Talk:Common millet

If this page is to redirect to proso millet, it might help to have a "for other uses" tag on the target page, pointing to a disambig or some explanation. Usage of the term "common millet" is somewhat unstable. It evidently was used for foxtail millet in the US during the 19th century. I just noted one article on the web stating: "Pearl millet, also known as common millet, ..." (pearl millet is after all the most cultivated/produced in the world; proso is 3rd, but apparently more traded internationally than other millets). Just thinking that users of Wikipedia should somehow be informed that "common millet" might mean one of several species of millet depending on the context.--A12n (talk) 22:42, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Good catch. "Common" common names are often problematic, as the common species in one part of the world may not be common in another. I don't find anything in a quick glance at general Google or Scholar searches that uses "common millet" for anything besides P. miliaceum, but Google Books does have a bunch of older sources using the term for Setaria (which I assume is what you saw for 19th century sources, although there's also a 1948 book applying calling Setaria "common millet"). Plantdrew (talk) 23:30, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The 19th century source I saw - Annual Report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture and Annual Report of the Experiment Station, Michigan. State Board of Agriculture, January 1, 1896 - noted that "common millet" meant proso (P. miliaceum) in Europe but foxtaiil (S. italica) in the US, but that at that time there were a few cases of European usage in the US. The shift in assignation of the term "common" in the US apparently paralleled the relative shift from foxtail to proso in cultivation (several factors involved there). A larger point I've been making (beyond the issue with this page, now resolved, thanks) is that the common term "millet" itself is problematic in that it arguably tends to shape thinking about a class of diverse small grains (perhaps analogous to the way "corn" was once used - and still is in Britain? - to refer to major grains).--A12n (talk) 12:28, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, "millet" is hard to nail down, and the millet article isn't adequately sourced as to what gets included there. Job's tears is listed but seems to me to be too large to be a millet. Plantdrew (talk) 20:59, 3 February 2016 (UTC)