Talk:Corn (term)

I removed the redirect to Talk:Corn (disambiguation) which confused me, why shouldn't this page have its own talkpage? -- Mad031683 (talk) 21:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem; it was just an accident of the complicated history. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 22:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

ok

Origins of Corn

So does anyone know if corn is a Old World or a New World plant? (I know it shouldnt be confused with the old English term "Corn"- meaning a grain.) I've been debating this with a friend of mine.

-Bill-

October 11, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.62.163 (talk) 23:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear Bill, I'd worried that wikipedia isn't already sufficiently clear about this. Is it because you didn't follow the link to maize, or is the statement there that "Maize (IPA: /ˈmeɪz/) (Zea mays L. ssp. mays), known as corn in some countries, is a cereal grain domesticated in Mesoamerica and subsequently spread throughout the American continents" not explicit enough? SamuelTheGhost (talk) 12:03, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Well the fact that corn is mentioned in English prior to Columbus' discovery of America would indicate that it is an old world plant. In fact, corn is a number of different old world plants (rye, barley, wheat, etc.), plus some new-world ones. One of those new-world plants that gets called "corn" is maize, and that's the one you seem to be asking about. And I'm afraid you're still a bit confused, Bill. Your statement in brackets is kind of the wrong way round. The word "corn" is a modern English word, not just an old English one; it is still very much alive, and retains its broad meaning of "grain" in both UK and US English, as you will see if you look in the OED or the Merriam-Webster. It's not so much that this word "shouldn't be confused with the old English term", but that you shouldn't get confused into thinking that "corn" now only means maize. (It's comments like yours that make me so glad that Corn is no longer simply a redirect to Maize!) Fuzzypeg★ 04:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

#REDIRECT maize

This article should be redirected to Maize. Please consider this option. Maize

First, I must thank you for raising the question here, rather than just editing the article itself, which so many have done recently. I can assure you that the option you recommend has been considered at great length, as you can see if you look at Talk: Maize. Many people wanted to do as you suggest, but others disagreed. The reasons for having it this way are implied by the content of the article as it is. If you read that carefully and thoughtfully, you may come to understand those reasons, particularly if they cause you to realise things you didn't previously know, which I suspect may be the case. If after reading it, you still disagree, please come back here with more detailed comments. Best wishes, anyway SamuelTheGhost (talk) 23:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Popcorn and Candy corn

1 January 2008 Please note that I added Popcorn as an edible treatment of corn. I also deleted Candy Corn. Although undoubtedly candy corn is fabricated from corn syrup, if candy corn belongs in the list, then every other product manufactured from or with corn syrup belongs there as well.

--Brian--

Hello Brian. Thanks for explaining your edit. I've shifted your comment here to the bottom of the page in accordance with WP conventions, and to make it easier to read things in the right order. Candy corn needs to be there because it has "corn" in its name and this is primarily a disambiguation page. I have, however, put it in a different section. Thanks for pointing out that it was indeed under the wrong heading. "Popcorn" is already there; once is enough. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 11:20, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Fix the corn - maize mess

The several articles on maize and corn are terribly confusing to readers in most in the world. This mess needs to be untangled and made reader friendly. Yes, there is an “Olde English” term for “corn” being any type of grain, but that is not what most people in the world use the term for. Various people have labeled corn/maize as fruit, grain, and vegetable. Lets not try botany but rather think of what people do with the end product. In actual usage, field corn is treated as a grain while sweet corn (fresh, frozen, canned, or corn on the cob) is clearly treated as a vegetable. There have been lively discussions on this in the archives but the issues are far from being resolved.

• the present article on corn only treats the Olde English “any grain” definition. A better title would be “corn (grain)”
• corn should redirect to either the corn disambiguation page or to the vegetable, sweet corn.
• OK, we can let the Europeans keep the maize article but dealing mostly with the grain, field corn.
• The corn disambiguation page should start with the most common world usage of the word “corn” and route readers to maize, field corn, sweet corn, or whatever type of this particular grain/vegetable they are interested in.

This will not satisfy all editors but it will make readers of Wikipedia much less confused. Grantmidnight (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I saw that this was cross-posted on various talk pages, so to make the discussion easier, I've suggested on them that all comments be made here. -kotra (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

A couple of problems:

• The present article on corn is not only about the Old English "any grain" definition. It is an article on the term "corn", with all its meanings described. It serves this purpose well, and I don't think it should be narrowed in scope to the Old English meaning.
• Why make maize deal mostly with field corn? As far as I can tell, "maize" isn't solely used for "field corn" most of the time. The most common meaning of "maize" seems to be what Americans refer to as "corn" (both the sweet and field types).

So, if it is determined that "corn" is more common worldwide than "maize" (to refer to what Americans call "corn" and British call "maize"), I would suggest the following changes instead:

• Corn is renamed Corn (term).
• Maize is renamed Corn.
• Sweet corn stays as is.
• Corn (disambiguation) and Maize (disambiguation) are updated to reflect these changes.

I would only support this, though, if it can be shown that "corn" is the more common term than "maize"... Google seems to support this, but we may need some harder proof to avoid future edit wars. -kotra (talk) 20:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I cross-posted the input because this related to several articles. Yes, your thoughts are good. Field corn now forwards to Maize, which is OK with me; both are grains. In Europe, the terms corn on the cob and sweet corn are used often for the vegetable while maize is always used for the grain field corn. I would like to see "corn" redirect to the disambiuation page or to "sweet corn": either is OK. Grantmidnight (talk) 21:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The cross-post was good, I just wanted to prevent 4 different discussions on the same subject from happening at once.

Just to clarify, by "I would like to see 'corn' redirect to the disambiguation page or to 'sweet corn'", do you mean having one of these hatnotes (see below) at the top of Corn (which would be the current Maize article renamed)? Or do you mean Corn should be an empty page that automatically redirects to Corn (disambiguation) or Sweet corn, like Field corn redirects?

For other uses, see Corn (disambiguation).

-kotra (talk) 22:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Since when and by who's authority did English (the language spoken in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, etc) suddenly become Olde English? lol. fyi. Corn means the fruits of a cereal crop, in English.... your dialect included. Please refer to a Dictionary. 68.123.254.61 (talk) 08:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

About a word

This article appears to be a dictionary entry about the word "corn" without any prospect of becoming an encyclopedic article. I'm giving a courtesy heads-up before redirecting this to corn if anyone feels they has arguments as to why it should have a life of its own.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:05, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It's more like an extended disambiguation page. The "corn" articles have a history of extreme disagreement and strife, largely fuelled by arguments on the relationship between "corn" and "maize". Things seem to have stabilised on the present structure. If you do as you suggest, you'll provoke another bout of edit-warring, which will be a disservice to us all. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 16:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems to me as if the normal disambiguation page is working dandy. If anyone wants to vent by writing dictionary material, they should be urged to contribute to the wiktionary article. WP:DICDEF is not dispute resolution.

Peter ^Isotalo 07:56, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The current structure as a whole does seem to be working dandy. The quotations from Shakespeare and the Authorised Version of the Bible are indeed, strictly speaking, dictionary material (although they don't appear in the Wiktionary entry). The were not written "to vent", however. Thry were written because there is a large population of wikipedia readers and editors, particularly younger Americans, who don't know the full range of meanings of the word "corn", but who don't realise that they don't know it, so they don't recognise their need to look in wiktionary. In the course of the previous extended discussions about the "corn" articles a few of them actually acknowledged that fact on these talk pages. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 10:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Everything here is strictly speaking dictionary material. It just happens to be formatted to look like encyclopedic material. This article is basically an inferior duplicate of the Wiktionary article and will really never amount to anything else for the very simple reason that it's not supposed to be here. I actually do a lot of work on both projects, and I know Wiktionary is a far superior tool for informing people about obscure or archaic definitions of terms. The problem is that the resources for writing "terminology articles" aren't available on Wikipedia and the result in my experience is never good.

And I just moved the quotes to the Wiktionary article, so there's no need to claim it's less complete.

Peter ^Isotalo 07:25, 18 April 2009 (UTC)