It’s always funny that maize was exempt from the British “Corn laws”. Except for the whole starving Ireland thing.

  • Forester@pawb.social
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    6 days ago

    “corn” (or cō̆rn) meant any small seed or grain, like a grain of sand, salt, or cereal, deriving from a Proto-Germanic word for “small seed” (kurnam) and ultimately PIE ǵrh₂nóm. It was a general term for local cereal crops, so in England it meant wheat or barley, in Scotland oats, and later, when Europeans met maize in the Americas, they called it “corn” because it was the local grain.

    Thats how corned beef got named, corns of salt.

    • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      Can confirm. In German a wheat field like in the OP would be called a Kornfeld, immortalised by Jürgen Drews in his song “Ein Bett im Kornfeld” which is about two people fucking in a corn field.