Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 March 29

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March 29

What was called "corn" before the 15th century?

I'm reading The Potter's Field, a novel of The Cadfael Chronicles by historical fiction author Ellis Peters. The very first sentence of the novel starts out:

Saint Peter's Fair of that year, 1142, was one week past, ... with the corn harvest already being carted into barns....

This just jumped out at me and made me pause. The grain we call corn was brought to Europe after the discovery of the New World in 1492, which is over 300 years after the events in the novel.

Given that the author is something of a scholar who has a reputation for well-researched fiction, I couldn't immediately dismiss this as a gaffe, but had to wonder about it. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

In Britain corn usually means wheat or barley, but it can be used for any grain, usually whichever is the staple in that time and place. Wikipedia for some reason regards USian usage as normal. DuncanHill (talk) 01:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The OED says "As a general term the word includes all the cereals, wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, rice, etc., and, with qualification (as black corn, pulse corn), is extended to leguminous plants, as pease, beans, etc., cultivated for food. Locally, the word, when not otherwise qualified, is often understood to denote that kind of cereal which is the leading crop of the district; hence in the greater part of England `corn' is = wheat, in North Britain and Ireland = oats; in the U.S. the word, as short for Indian corn, is restricted to maize". DuncanHill (talk) 01:17, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I should point out that North Britain means Scotland, which reminds us of Dr Johnson's definition of oats - "A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people". DuncanHill (talk) 01:20, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

To which comment Johnson's Scottish friend and biographer James Boswell apparently replied, "Yes - better men, better horses" (from The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour, isbn 0-552-98051-X, p76). PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:25, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, I posted too soon, before I thought to look up the etymology of the word. Wiktionary:corn#Middle English also confirms the word was used to refer to any plant that bears grain. Apparently even today in the UK, the word refers to the local staple grain, like wheat or barley or or oats.

So the author was correct in her usage of the word, given her British perspective and the middle-English story setting. I was evidently led to confusion by my American perspective. Another difference between American and UK word usage.

As for USian usage, WP:ENGVAR determines what word usage is normal in any article. Likely because corn is the common term in America for maize, the title corn redirects to maize, and because the grain is American in origin, the article uses that variety of English. I agree it can be confusing to non-American readers, just as this first sentence of the novel was confusing to me. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:21, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I think Corn was originally a disambiguation page, but now it points to maize because American voices have prevailed at the various discussions about where it should point. It makes it much harder to check that links are correct, but here American usage is seen as primary. Globally the word is inherently ambiguous, however clear the meaning may be locally. DuncanHill (talk) 01:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The article maize to which corn currently points does have a hatnote pointing to corn (disambiguation) and a section about the name which explains the difference. I think the hatnote is inadequate, but it really winds some people up to try to make it clearer so I gave up on it years ago. DuncanHill (talk) 01:33, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

This external page All about medieval English grains seems to have a lot of useful information, but see also our articles Agriculture in the Middle Ages and Economics of English agriculture in the Middle Ages. MinorProphet (talk) 01:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Most major British towns have a corn exchange which was formerly used for produce trading, but is now usually a public hall for meetings etc. Alansplodge (talk) 09:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Maize can be called Indian corn, but in America we've shortened it to just corn. Though not entirely. We still qualify it: field corn, sweet corn, popcorn, etc. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 08:03, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

In the UK, it's called "maize" if you feed it to animals and "sweetcorn" if you feed it to humans. Use as food rather than fodder was not really a thing until the mid-20th century, and tinned Green Giant sweetcorn was considered rather exotic in my 1960s childhood. Alansplodge (talk) 09:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The phrases "Indian corn" and "maize", in American usage, both ordinarily refer to brightly-colored decorative flint corn, used to brighten up the Thanksgiving table or the hearth over the fireplace. Unmoidified "corn" usually means sweet corn, unless baked into something, in which case I suppose it's flour corn, though few of us city folk are aware there's actually a difference. --Trovatore (talk) 16:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

My mother visited the UK as part of some kind of educational program ca. 1953, and she said that corn on the cob was on the menu once, mainly because the British kitchen staff wanted to see if the American students would actually eat it! -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

This thread brought to mind a previous, somewhat related ref-desk thread. Deor (talk) 16:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The last post on that thread illustrates that the British usage of corn as a general term for grain may be entering obsolescence, and to anyone below middle age, or who didn't learn about the Corn Laws at school, "corn" probably means "sweetcorn". Alansplodge (talk) 22:21, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Britain except Americans and a certain type of restaurateur use corn for maize. DuncanHill (talk) 13:58, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

As a reminder, the famous 1826 painting by John Constable depicting an Essex scene and generally called The Cornfield does not include a field of maize! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.219.35.136 (talk) 19:26, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

See also Corn and Kernel at Etymonline. MinorProphet (talk) 22:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

"And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities" Book of Genesis 41:49. Alansplodge (talk) 22:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Obviously a mediaeval interpretation, a bit like: "O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you." KJV, Isaiah 21:10. NB the real Isaiah starts at Chapter 40. MinorProphet (talk) 01:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, see Early Modern English Bible translations. Alansplodge (talk) 08:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Is there is no treacle in Gilead? The world-famous treacle mines in Sonning were never definitively located. MinorProphet (talk) 11:14, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Hebrew B+ouR+ (bar) in Genesis 41:49 (not verse 35 quoted above, but "And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number.") means "grain", so how is this a "mediaeval interpretation", rather than a direct translation?  --Lambiam 11:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

From the conversation above, corn and grain were ( and are) pretty much synonymous. Alansplodge (talk) 13:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

...so how is this a "mediaeval interpretation"? Well, according to the foregoing discussion, and also the typically US-centric favored definition on WP, a modern interpretation would apparently include Zea mays convar. saccharata var. rugosa. Thus the evident confusion. I have nothing whatever against mediaevalists or their habits. And anyway, what about the renaming committee for the Isle of Corn? [1] MinorProphet (talk) 00:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Note that the King James Version was the work of numerous scholars between 1525 and 1611, so early modern period (16th to 18th centuries) rather than medieval (5th to 15th centuries). Alansplodge (talk) 11:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Why didn't parliament conduct a voice vote for RINL privatization?

RINL is public sector and has huge revenue but parliament changed into private sector just by single statement:

>The state has no equity share in the plant and the centre is withdrawing 100% of the investment, according to a statement by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in March 2021.

Source

Why didn't parliament conduct a voice vote for RINL privatization? Rizosome (talk) 06:18, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

RINL courtesy link (it's an Indian steel corporation). Alansplodge (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Why? Presumably because the decision could be made by the relevant Government minister(s) without requiring a parliamentary vote: someone knowlegeable in Indian governmental affairs (hello?) would have to explain exactly why that was the case.

I must say that the article itself could do with more context and qualification: I assume from the first of the references cited for the statement that "the centre" (mentioned nowhere else in the article) refers to the Central Government of India, which is not obvious to a non-Indian. Similarly, does "the state" refer to the (Nation) State of India or to the State of Andhra Pradesh wherein the relevant steel plant is located? Presumably the Infobox still refers to the corporate entity's owner as The Government of India because although its privatization has been announced it hasn't yet actually been sold? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.219.35.136 (talk) 19:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

"Stronger than a thousand armies is an idea whose time has come."

I've seen this attributed to both Victor Hugo and Oscar Wilde. Did either of them say it, and if so which, and if not who? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 21:41, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

According to this blog, the actual quote is:

“On resiste a l’invasion des armees; on ne resiste pas a l’invasion des idees.”

("One can resist the invasion of armies; one cannot resist the invasion of ideas") The History of a Crime (1877). Alansplodge (talk) 22:34, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

In Google Books, the loose English paraphrase appears in numerous publications, the earliest I could find was in 1919. A couple of them, like this one from 1956, reference it to "the last entry in Victor Hugo's diary". Still looking. Alansplodge (talk) 22:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Le Monde has: "Il existe une chose plus puissante que toutes les armées du monde, c'est une idée dont l'heure est venue" [2], although as I can see, that exact phrase only appears elsewhere in social media posts. Alansplodge (talk) 22:56, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The exact sentence "On résiste à l’invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l’invasion des idées." occurs here in Histoire d'un crime.  --Lambiam 10:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks @Alansplodge: and @Lambiam:. DuncanHill (talk) 15:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)