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This argument is ridiculous. It's as if people were arguing that the Dog page redirect should to Pug because you've heard people refer to pugs as dogs, and any use ofdog to refer to other types of canine is wrong. That's what you sound like when you argue that corn can only ever mean maize. You are arguing from a point of ignorance, and any educated person will tell you that. The idea that words can refer to categories of things is a concept you should be able to grasp!
There's also a touch of racism and xenophobia here in trying to exclude the vast majority of the world population. The majority of speakers of English speak it as a second language, and they almost all come from countries where the local word for maize is maize, or a near analogue thereof, because that's the word everyone but a small minority of the world uses when referring to maize. Those people are being needlessly confused by the infantile insistence of narrow-minded Americans on this site trying to insist that a word means something less than what it actually means. 07:10, 2 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dantai Amakiir ( talk • contribs)
This was a redirect to Talk:Corn but Corn was a redirect to Maize. I moved Talk:Corn to Talk:Maize/Archive 1 and removed the redirect here.-- Doug.( talk • contribs) 07:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Could those who use the word corn as a synonym for maize or sweetcorn please note the wider meaning of the word, as it is used outside the area in which you reside. [1] [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.225.129.31 ( talk • contribs)
dude, like not inside the the boundries of the place where you live. 72.221.122.158 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment was added on 22:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC).
The word of God will set you all freee from this debate. In Jesus' name we pray. Ohm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.176.60.170 ( talk) 11:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
ASIDE from the whole "Corn does not equal maize" thing (which I think I've addressed--I personally don't know how much of the world is referring to maize when they say corn, but the redirect goes there) (although it is pretty ridiculous to suggest that it's only the "midwest USA" who does; I'm in Virginia and when we say corn we're definitely not talking about barley), does anyone have any actual disagreements with the changes I made, ALL of which were only to bring this page into compliance with the Wikipedia Manual of Style? I mean, I hate to keep reverting to my own version, but the edit summaries are absolutely inexplicable. "I agree but that is a different matter"? What is a different matter? And the whole point of cleanup--or part of it--is to remove extra information that does not help users disambiguate multiple topics that could be referred to as "corn." The cereal crops are all listed on that article. There IS no existing article specifically on "corny humor." Peppercorns are a phrase that contains the word "corn", not something actually referred to as "corn" (and if I'm wrong, it's not mentioned in the peppercorn article). Similarly, the Cornwall article doesn't support any reference to the nickname "Corn", that I can find. Oh, also, people in the USA call popcorn popcorn, not corn. Please refer to WP:Disambiguation#Lists.
Also, is there a reason why so many anonymous IPs are so protective of this page? It's bizarre. Propaniac ( talk) 05:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
A recent edit has put both barley and wheat as synonyms. I am not convinced but don't want to waste time reverting too often as I am not positive ... I can find no mention in the target articles. Can others who may watch this page please assist. Abtract ( talk) 09:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
See Dictionary.com entry no. 4 (doesn't reference barley but I suspect it's included).-- Doug.( talk • contribs) 14:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Of course if the articles on barley and wheat mentioned corn as an alternative name that would be different, but they don't so far as I can see. Abtract ( talk) 19:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
It is so easy once you understand what a dab page is for; it is to aid navigation to articles of a similar name or synonyms. Now that these other cereal articles contain the info that corn is a synonym in certain countries it is quite valid to dab to them, but when that wasn't so there was no justification to do so. Abtract ( talk) 20:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice that user Abtract found time
to change Peppercorn to Peppercorn (disambiguation). It's of miniscule importance in itself, but could he or someone justify the reason with a reference to wikipedia policy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamuelTheGhost ( talk • contribs)
I rewrote the article this morning. Its been reverted with the edit summary "Rv, this is a dab page not an article. There is no primary topic here, see WP:PRIME)". I don't understand. Yes, this is a dab page. The stuff about "primary topics" is a guideline, not an essential. I can't see how the old, now reinstated, article is better than the new one I wrote and I think it particularly unhelpful just to revert rather than suggesting some constructive improvement. I added lots of new disambiguation material and it's not responsible editing just to junk it, as has been done. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 21:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
cereal crop' or something like it) on the disambiguation page? I know about WP:PRIMARYMEANING but it does not say that putting in the dictionary definition is taboo. It even says:
A disambiguation page is not a list of dictionary definitions. A short description of the common general meaning of a word can be appropriate for helping the reader determine context.
Rachel Pearce ( talk) 15:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
There has been an edit was in which the antagonist got blocked and the veteran Wikipedian who got caught in the edit war got a temporary block. The main use of the word "corn" in British English is for grains in general. The American use of the word "corn" is for what most of the English-speaking world calls " maize". Steelbeard1 ( talk) 19:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
America IS "most of the English-speaking world." 128.211.198.168 ( talk) 15:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to make a point or two which I hope will contribute to consensus; if not I'll go away. There's a riddle which goes
Modern English (the language) is about 500 years old. An English-language Encyclopedia must address the whole of its literature, which all its speakers share. If a modern young person in Kansas reads Keats' Ode to a Nightingale he or she encounters the lines
If this young person goes to Wikipedia for help, he or she currently gets it, and learns something new, which is what encyclopedias are for. So please bear the "Kansas Kid reading Keats" in mind.
Within Wikipedia itself, therre are quite a few articles which are poorly wikified dumps of materal from out-of-copyright encyclopedias like the 1911 Britannica and even earlier stuff. They may well speak of, for example, the trade in corn in the Roman Empire, and regularly use the word "corn" for grain. Again, if someone is puzzled, we must make sure they are enlightened.
Within the UK, currently, usage is mixed, perhaps even confused, and the younger generation, in particular, are likely to be moving towards the American usage. This makes it all the more necessary that an encyclopedia should admit ambiguity, then disambiguate. We need to frame our articles from a starting point of language which all readers understand, but then if necessary develop and clarify.
I hope this helps. The difference in the two warring versions that have been causing all the trouble seems to me very slight in any case. There are areas of Wikipedia in greater need of attention. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 12:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
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.
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 was working on disambiguating some links and it appears that almost all of the articles that link directly to this page are referring to maize. With that in mind, it might make sense to move this to Corn (Disambiguation), which is currently a redirect, and redirect this page to maize. Just a thought. Tad Lincoln ( talk) 23:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Of course discussion as such does not cause edit warring but there has certainly been both. It's not so easy to see in the history because there has also been frequent vandalism, but there was a major argument in early September 2008, which was followed by a period of relative stability. Then another discussion was started at the end of January, which had the effect of moving "Corn" to "Corn (term)" (26 Jan 2009), after which things settled down again. Many people have strong opinions about this. Any substantial change is likely to meet with opposition. I don't think the currect setup is perfect, but I think it's good enough, and there are more important things to do. I invite you to share that viewpoint. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 12:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Thecurran ( talk) 17:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Given that previous writers on this page established that in the US, "corn" means maize and in the UK and Ireland, "corn" means grain, these searches survey the use of "corn" by Google in the countries with at least one million native English speakers and then those others with at least ten million total English speakers, including United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Poland, and China (People's Republic of) by doing the regular search in English, then appending "&meta=cr%3Dcountry" and a capitalized ttLD code to end of the old URL and then going to the new URL. Based on the short preview given in each search, the results employing "sweet corn" or "corn (sweet)" are excluded as ambiguous and those about foot calluses are excluded as irrelevant but each are included in the count to maintain NPOV. Similarly sub-results and image results are excluded to avoid doubling single sources but neither are included in the count.
Excluding the one foot callus hit in between, the US top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one foot callus hit, which comes first, the British top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to grain when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Canadian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the second one employs "corn" only in the label name, " Peanuts & Corn Records", it implies maize in the phrase, "peanuts and corn", which when googled gives results about maize like time.com, etc and when WP-searched gives results about maize like w:Shona people. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the three "sweet corn" hits and the three foot callus hits in between, the Australian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10 & 11-20:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one "sweet corn" hit and the three foot callus hits in between, the Irish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to grain when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the South African top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the fifth one employs "corn" only in the term "corn snake", it implies maize as w:corn snakes are so-named because "they have a maize-like pattern on their bellies and because they were found in corn fields". The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Filipino top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the two "sweet corn" hits and the two foot callus hits in between, the New Zealand top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one employs "corn" only as a literal device, it implies maize in the phrase, "rising up like the frigid stalks of fountains", in the first sentence. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one "corn (sweet)" hit, which came first, the Jamaican top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one employs "corn" only in the name of a poorly documented Jamaican community called "Corn Piece", it implies maize in the idea of a piece of maize. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one foot callus hit, the Trinidad and Tobago top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Indian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the second one employs "corn" only as a literal device, it implies grain in the phrase, "seed corn". The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Nigerian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one employs "corn" only in the term, "guinea corn", it implies grain as sorghum is more like wheat than maize. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the German top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one is unclear it seems to imply grain with its image. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the French top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the first one uses "corn" as simply an acronym, it implies neither meaning outside of the some traditions that associate chickens with eating maize. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one "sweet corn", which comes first, the Pakistani top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Italian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the first one is very unclear on what it means by "corn", my guess is that it is more likely to be grain. The fourth explicitly refers to grain when it mentions "corn". The other three explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Japanese top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Dutch top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
The first one uses "corn" as an acronym, so implies neither meaning excepting traditions that associate chickens with eating maize. The third one is about bromeliads, so my best guess would be that it might imply maize. The last one is about the "Edinburgh Corn Exchange", so it implies grain. The other two explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Spanish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Turkish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Polish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
The second one uses "corn" as a programming language and humourously refers to a "corn kernel", implying maize. The third is a jeweller whose best-seller is a £ 1281.00 gold ring with 280 zircons, implying maize. The fourth is a my-space layout that resembles farmed fields of maize. The other two explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Chinese top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the fifth one uses "corn" only as something that looks similar to the "com" of internet domain names, it cannot be attributed to imply either meaning of "corn". The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned. While the first one explicitly states that the grain meaning of "corn" is confined to British English, it explicitly states that the maize meaning of "corn" constitutes the worldwide rule, not the exception.
This list of countries encompasses not only most of the English speakers of the world, native or not, but most of the people of the world. The data refutes that the meaning of "corn" in English is more often grain than maize. It highlights that outside of the Ireland and the UK, there are some compound terms that employ the archaic grain meaning of "corn" like "sweet corn", "seed corn", and "guinea corn" but that on its own, "corn" rarely means grain as opposed to maize. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 17:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
For countries where the most common cereal crop is rice, corn still means maize. Anyhow, as per your request I have removed the subsection headers. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 04:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Please look up the DNS of each URL, I specified that each search was being done solely on pages within the country of interest. That is the point of a search done on pages only in ..., which should do the trick quite nicely. Now, based on the List of countries by English-speaking population, the ten countries with at least a million native English speakers, from highest count to lowest are: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Philippines, New Zealand, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. I work in Perth, AU-WA, where I work with people from each of the first nine countries every fortnight, and Trinbagonians monthly. Similarly, the other dozen countries with at least ten million English speakers are: India, Nigeria, Germany, France, Pakistan, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Poland, and China and I work with people from each of these countries and the Middle East from a weekly to a monthly basis. I also went to school in both the US and the Commonwealth of Nations as well. As such I am acutely aware of which terms are Briticisms, Americanisms, or otherwise. I even favour words with -our over -or and words with -ize over -ise when I am on Wikipedia because I theorize that it is most balanced approach to take. Aside from the sites searched for the US, the sites above are specifically non-US. In the Commonwealth, most terms match well with Briticisms but occasionally some words (e.g., "corn") match more with Americanisms. In order to double-check this, I searched for "corn definition" in many different countries. biology-online.org, dictionary.kids.net.au, holisticshop.co.uk, horseandridergear.com, and lookwayup.com use maize. answers.com, macmillandictionary.com, a British standard, thefreedictionary, and wordnetweb.princeton.edu, a US standard, yourdictionary.com use maize and bear caveats that it means grain in the British Isles. merriam-webster.com, a US standard uses grain and specifies that usually in the British Isles means something other than maize but in the New World (e.g., everything outside of Afro-Eurasia) it means maize. dictionary.cambridge.org, a British standard says that it means grain in the UK and maize in the US, but scours no other areas. primitivestate.com, a British T-shirt company uses grain. Just to be very clear, here is a current search within Egyptian sites since it joins the Middle East with North Africa, it is the predominant source of Arabic media, it has a very strong British history and no Arab state is in the Commonwealth:
Egypt Excluding no hits, the top five Egyptian results [ 1-10] yield: [ globalegyptianmuseum.org] [ eternalegypt.org] [ bibalex.org] [ aucegypt.edu] [ alibaba.com] The first two explicitly mean grain, bearing British museum descriptions of ancient Egyptian artefacts. The other three explicitly mean maize and use it in modern scientific, legal, and commerical purposes.
Simply put, It seems the grain variant of "corn" is only employed when the British or Irish are expected in the audience but that for the rest of the planet, "corn" means maize. If you still disagree, try doing a google book count, a well-established tool in Wiktionary. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 02:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
I suspect such a Google book count would show the maize meaning of "corn" spreading from only the US and some parts of Canada in the 19th Century to everywhere but the British Isles in the 21st Century. BTW, look closely and you may notice that I did include the British and Irish searches, in both of which all five meant grain. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 02:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
The OED does not define corn as "the chief cereal crop of a district". About 1500 words into its entry, at II 3, it says "Locally, the word, unless otherwise qualified, is often understood to denote that kind of cereal which is the leading crop of the district", going on to mention wheat "in the greater part of England", oats (Scotland and Ireland) and "in the US the word, as short for Indian corn, is restricted to maize". Using "chief cereal crop" as the lead definition means that for many "districts" of the US and Canada, where more wheat than maize is grown, "corn" should mean wheat, when it clearly does not. Equally corn is not normally used for rice, sorghum, millet or other cereals which are the chief cereal crop of large areas of the world. Venturing into OR, I would say it is only used of large grained cereals (also mentioned in another OED section) of a yellowish grain colour in bulk - not whiteish like rice or millet - but this is a pretty subjective distinction I don't suggest we add. The OED mentions that all sorts of beans, legumes etc may be called "corn" with a qualifier "black corn" etc. In North America "Indian corn" started out like this, & then dropped the qualifier later. With this exception, plain "corn" means a dryland cereal with a single stalk that is smooth for most of its length, and usually (not oats) a single ear with largish grains - whether wheat, oats, rye etc. I think all these are classified as Pooideae, but I'm not sure about that. Johnbod ( talk) 15:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I switched the style per Talk:Maize#Many_people_who_search_for_.22Corn.22_will_never_find_this_page and also seeing no real objection to that layout in the discussions above. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 17:03, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps to summarize: If an English user looks for corn and sees maize, are they surprised not to see wheat or barley, or could they reasonably be expected to proceed to click on the disambiguation link without a sense of a problem? I think the latter is the case. Also, to clarify: redirect does not imply that two terms are synonyms. IMHO, in this case, partial disambiguation is appropriate and not unfair. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 17:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Ok, here's the problem as I see it, and the most logical conclusion.
If we assume that those using American/Canadian/Australian usage of corn (the majority of native English speakers) MAY not be familiar with "maize" as a term for corn, then having this article named "Corn" with "Maize" redirecting straight here solves all problems. If the UK English speaker is looking for "Maize" they're already here. If they are looking for general cereals then a link at the top saying "Corn redirects here. For [corn as in general cereals, unsure of terminology here?] see [article name]." Problem solved, every single person looking for one or the other is within one click and we bypass the need for "Corn" going to disambig and potentially confusing any readers who have never heard of "Maize." You could keep it named "Maize" and redirect "Corn" here with a disambig link as well, but frankly I support renaming that article "Corn" since the vast majority of English speakers use that term.
I think this is something of a special case. It's not a single letter spelling difference, and it's not even commonwealth terminology vs American, it's "UK vs the rest of the world." Everyone says "Europe" but other than UK/Ireland, where else speaks English as a native language? - OldManNeptune ( talk) 11:36, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
This article is better than what it was like before. We should leave it how it is for now since there is nothing wrong with it. Also, Baseball_Bugs by your logic [4] should be moved to Sweet maize. Gune ( talk) 04:27, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I asked at the language ref desk what the Mandarin for maize is. The answer: "jade rice". So they took the name of their dominant grain (whatever the Mandarin word for rice is) and qualified it with a special adjective. Interestingly, that squares with the European approach of qualifying their "corn" (e.g. wheat) and calling maize "Indian corn". Why "jade", they didn't say. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
You meant to say sweet corn is a variety of corn. Gune ( talk) 07:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
This section is primarily based on the renewable energy feature used by corn kernels and therefore it should remain its own page. Merging this section with "Corn" would lose its integrity of representing the primary use of corn kernels in renewable energy efforts. Rather than combining this with a page talking about maize and how/where/when its grown, we should keep this page separate in order to redirect those who are seeking information on renewable energy methods. It would be cleaner, more organized and more efficient to keep this page separate. Jucunningham ( talk) 16:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Corn should redirect here; linking it to maize is very confusing to anyone from the British Isles or India.-- Gilderien Chat| List of good deeds 14:25, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved, consensus is that the primary topic of "Corn" is the topic covered at Maize. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 12:33, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Corn (disambiguation) → Corn – I propose the this page be moved over the redirect corn. There is longstanding consensus that Maize should not be at corn, and yet corn redirects there, and other uses are given this page. This is illogical and so the simplest solution would be to just have the disambiguation page at corn. The current links to corn, meaning maize, could be (and are currently being) corrected to maize, and the others, which are currently being sent to maize incorrectly, would now lead to a disambiguation page, making them either correct or much easier to correct using DAB solver. Gilderien Chat| List of good deeds 15:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Good to see an accurate definition of corn. See also 'corn exchange' or 'corn dolly'. The internet is USA centric and hence it can be hard to get an accurate picture that is representative of the other nine tenths of the world. 2A00:23C6:492B:B901:CB9:175C:5787:101F ( talk) 14:20, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Note: moved from User talk:Espoo. 162 etc. ( talk) 17:43, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
Hello Espoo, thank you for contributing. Did you however check the prior development of the article? I'm asking because I think your edit, while being nicely concise, is a regression on other improvements me and User:162_etc. made lately. Those are:
I reach out to you, because I have no interest in simply reverting your edit, and want to prevent any such misunderstanding. Instead I will concede that you were brave and WP:BOLD, whereas I settled for a minimally invasive approach. That's why I want to build on the lean structure you left, but also reintroduce the above mentioned improvements. Your feedback on the result will be highly appreciated!
Greetings, Flexperte ( talk) 03:58, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
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This argument is ridiculous. It's as if people were arguing that the Dog page redirect should to Pug because you've heard people refer to pugs as dogs, and any use ofdog to refer to other types of canine is wrong. That's what you sound like when you argue that corn can only ever mean maize. You are arguing from a point of ignorance, and any educated person will tell you that. The idea that words can refer to categories of things is a concept you should be able to grasp!
There's also a touch of racism and xenophobia here in trying to exclude the vast majority of the world population. The majority of speakers of English speak it as a second language, and they almost all come from countries where the local word for maize is maize, or a near analogue thereof, because that's the word everyone but a small minority of the world uses when referring to maize. Those people are being needlessly confused by the infantile insistence of narrow-minded Americans on this site trying to insist that a word means something less than what it actually means. 07:10, 2 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dantai Amakiir ( talk • contribs)
This was a redirect to Talk:Corn but Corn was a redirect to Maize. I moved Talk:Corn to Talk:Maize/Archive 1 and removed the redirect here.-- Doug.( talk • contribs) 07:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Could those who use the word corn as a synonym for maize or sweetcorn please note the wider meaning of the word, as it is used outside the area in which you reside. [1] [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.225.129.31 ( talk • contribs)
dude, like not inside the the boundries of the place where you live. 72.221.122.158 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment was added on 22:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC).
The word of God will set you all freee from this debate. In Jesus' name we pray. Ohm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.176.60.170 ( talk) 11:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
ASIDE from the whole "Corn does not equal maize" thing (which I think I've addressed--I personally don't know how much of the world is referring to maize when they say corn, but the redirect goes there) (although it is pretty ridiculous to suggest that it's only the "midwest USA" who does; I'm in Virginia and when we say corn we're definitely not talking about barley), does anyone have any actual disagreements with the changes I made, ALL of which were only to bring this page into compliance with the Wikipedia Manual of Style? I mean, I hate to keep reverting to my own version, but the edit summaries are absolutely inexplicable. "I agree but that is a different matter"? What is a different matter? And the whole point of cleanup--or part of it--is to remove extra information that does not help users disambiguate multiple topics that could be referred to as "corn." The cereal crops are all listed on that article. There IS no existing article specifically on "corny humor." Peppercorns are a phrase that contains the word "corn", not something actually referred to as "corn" (and if I'm wrong, it's not mentioned in the peppercorn article). Similarly, the Cornwall article doesn't support any reference to the nickname "Corn", that I can find. Oh, also, people in the USA call popcorn popcorn, not corn. Please refer to WP:Disambiguation#Lists.
Also, is there a reason why so many anonymous IPs are so protective of this page? It's bizarre. Propaniac ( talk) 05:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
A recent edit has put both barley and wheat as synonyms. I am not convinced but don't want to waste time reverting too often as I am not positive ... I can find no mention in the target articles. Can others who may watch this page please assist. Abtract ( talk) 09:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
See Dictionary.com entry no. 4 (doesn't reference barley but I suspect it's included).-- Doug.( talk • contribs) 14:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Of course if the articles on barley and wheat mentioned corn as an alternative name that would be different, but they don't so far as I can see. Abtract ( talk) 19:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
It is so easy once you understand what a dab page is for; it is to aid navigation to articles of a similar name or synonyms. Now that these other cereal articles contain the info that corn is a synonym in certain countries it is quite valid to dab to them, but when that wasn't so there was no justification to do so. Abtract ( talk) 20:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice that user Abtract found time
to change Peppercorn to Peppercorn (disambiguation). It's of miniscule importance in itself, but could he or someone justify the reason with a reference to wikipedia policy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamuelTheGhost ( talk • contribs)
I rewrote the article this morning. Its been reverted with the edit summary "Rv, this is a dab page not an article. There is no primary topic here, see WP:PRIME)". I don't understand. Yes, this is a dab page. The stuff about "primary topics" is a guideline, not an essential. I can't see how the old, now reinstated, article is better than the new one I wrote and I think it particularly unhelpful just to revert rather than suggesting some constructive improvement. I added lots of new disambiguation material and it's not responsible editing just to junk it, as has been done. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 21:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
cereal crop' or something like it) on the disambiguation page? I know about WP:PRIMARYMEANING but it does not say that putting in the dictionary definition is taboo. It even says:
A disambiguation page is not a list of dictionary definitions. A short description of the common general meaning of a word can be appropriate for helping the reader determine context.
Rachel Pearce ( talk) 15:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
There has been an edit was in which the antagonist got blocked and the veteran Wikipedian who got caught in the edit war got a temporary block. The main use of the word "corn" in British English is for grains in general. The American use of the word "corn" is for what most of the English-speaking world calls " maize". Steelbeard1 ( talk) 19:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
America IS "most of the English-speaking world." 128.211.198.168 ( talk) 15:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to make a point or two which I hope will contribute to consensus; if not I'll go away. There's a riddle which goes
Modern English (the language) is about 500 years old. An English-language Encyclopedia must address the whole of its literature, which all its speakers share. If a modern young person in Kansas reads Keats' Ode to a Nightingale he or she encounters the lines
If this young person goes to Wikipedia for help, he or she currently gets it, and learns something new, which is what encyclopedias are for. So please bear the "Kansas Kid reading Keats" in mind.
Within Wikipedia itself, therre are quite a few articles which are poorly wikified dumps of materal from out-of-copyright encyclopedias like the 1911 Britannica and even earlier stuff. They may well speak of, for example, the trade in corn in the Roman Empire, and regularly use the word "corn" for grain. Again, if someone is puzzled, we must make sure they are enlightened.
Within the UK, currently, usage is mixed, perhaps even confused, and the younger generation, in particular, are likely to be moving towards the American usage. This makes it all the more necessary that an encyclopedia should admit ambiguity, then disambiguate. We need to frame our articles from a starting point of language which all readers understand, but then if necessary develop and clarify.
I hope this helps. The difference in the two warring versions that have been causing all the trouble seems to me very slight in any case. There are areas of Wikipedia in greater need of attention. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 12:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
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.
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 was working on disambiguating some links and it appears that almost all of the articles that link directly to this page are referring to maize. With that in mind, it might make sense to move this to Corn (Disambiguation), which is currently a redirect, and redirect this page to maize. Just a thought. Tad Lincoln ( talk) 23:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Of course discussion as such does not cause edit warring but there has certainly been both. It's not so easy to see in the history because there has also been frequent vandalism, but there was a major argument in early September 2008, which was followed by a period of relative stability. Then another discussion was started at the end of January, which had the effect of moving "Corn" to "Corn (term)" (26 Jan 2009), after which things settled down again. Many people have strong opinions about this. Any substantial change is likely to meet with opposition. I don't think the currect setup is perfect, but I think it's good enough, and there are more important things to do. I invite you to share that viewpoint. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 12:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Thecurran ( talk) 17:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Given that previous writers on this page established that in the US, "corn" means maize and in the UK and Ireland, "corn" means grain, these searches survey the use of "corn" by Google in the countries with at least one million native English speakers and then those others with at least ten million total English speakers, including United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Poland, and China (People's Republic of) by doing the regular search in English, then appending "&meta=cr%3Dcountry" and a capitalized ttLD code to end of the old URL and then going to the new URL. Based on the short preview given in each search, the results employing "sweet corn" or "corn (sweet)" are excluded as ambiguous and those about foot calluses are excluded as irrelevant but each are included in the count to maintain NPOV. Similarly sub-results and image results are excluded to avoid doubling single sources but neither are included in the count.
Excluding the one foot callus hit in between, the US top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one foot callus hit, which comes first, the British top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to grain when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Canadian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the second one employs "corn" only in the label name, " Peanuts & Corn Records", it implies maize in the phrase, "peanuts and corn", which when googled gives results about maize like time.com, etc and when WP-searched gives results about maize like w:Shona people. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the three "sweet corn" hits and the three foot callus hits in between, the Australian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10 & 11-20:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one "sweet corn" hit and the three foot callus hits in between, the Irish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to grain when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the South African top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the fifth one employs "corn" only in the term "corn snake", it implies maize as w:corn snakes are so-named because "they have a maize-like pattern on their bellies and because they were found in corn fields". The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Filipino top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the two "sweet corn" hits and the two foot callus hits in between, the New Zealand top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one employs "corn" only as a literal device, it implies maize in the phrase, "rising up like the frigid stalks of fountains", in the first sentence. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one "corn (sweet)" hit, which came first, the Jamaican top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one employs "corn" only in the name of a poorly documented Jamaican community called "Corn Piece", it implies maize in the idea of a piece of maize. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one foot callus hit, the Trinidad and Tobago top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Indian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the second one employs "corn" only as a literal device, it implies grain in the phrase, "seed corn". The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Nigerian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one employs "corn" only in the term, "guinea corn", it implies grain as sorghum is more like wheat than maize. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the German top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the third one is unclear it seems to imply grain with its image. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the French top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the first one uses "corn" as simply an acronym, it implies neither meaning outside of the some traditions that associate chickens with eating maize. The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding the one "sweet corn", which comes first, the Pakistani top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Italian top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the first one is very unclear on what it means by "corn", my guess is that it is more likely to be grain. The fourth explicitly refers to grain when it mentions "corn". The other three explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Japanese top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Dutch top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
The first one uses "corn" as an acronym, so implies neither meaning excepting traditions that associate chickens with eating maize. The third one is about bromeliads, so my best guess would be that it might imply maize. The last one is about the "Edinburgh Corn Exchange", so it implies grain. The other two explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Spanish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Turkish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
All five explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Polish top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
The second one uses "corn" as a programming language and humourously refers to a "corn kernel", implying maize. The third is a jeweller whose best-seller is a £ 1281.00 gold ring with 280 zircons, implying maize. The fourth is a my-space layout that resembles farmed fields of maize. The other two explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned.
Excluding no hits, the Chinese top five are, as found on today's results 1-10:
While the fifth one uses "corn" only as something that looks similar to the "com" of internet domain names, it cannot be attributed to imply either meaning of "corn". The other four explicitly refer to maize when "corn" is mentioned. While the first one explicitly states that the grain meaning of "corn" is confined to British English, it explicitly states that the maize meaning of "corn" constitutes the worldwide rule, not the exception.
This list of countries encompasses not only most of the English speakers of the world, native or not, but most of the people of the world. The data refutes that the meaning of "corn" in English is more often grain than maize. It highlights that outside of the Ireland and the UK, there are some compound terms that employ the archaic grain meaning of "corn" like "sweet corn", "seed corn", and "guinea corn" but that on its own, "corn" rarely means grain as opposed to maize. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 17:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
For countries where the most common cereal crop is rice, corn still means maize. Anyhow, as per your request I have removed the subsection headers. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 04:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Please look up the DNS of each URL, I specified that each search was being done solely on pages within the country of interest. That is the point of a search done on pages only in ..., which should do the trick quite nicely. Now, based on the List of countries by English-speaking population, the ten countries with at least a million native English speakers, from highest count to lowest are: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Philippines, New Zealand, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. I work in Perth, AU-WA, where I work with people from each of the first nine countries every fortnight, and Trinbagonians monthly. Similarly, the other dozen countries with at least ten million English speakers are: India, Nigeria, Germany, France, Pakistan, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Poland, and China and I work with people from each of these countries and the Middle East from a weekly to a monthly basis. I also went to school in both the US and the Commonwealth of Nations as well. As such I am acutely aware of which terms are Briticisms, Americanisms, or otherwise. I even favour words with -our over -or and words with -ize over -ise when I am on Wikipedia because I theorize that it is most balanced approach to take. Aside from the sites searched for the US, the sites above are specifically non-US. In the Commonwealth, most terms match well with Briticisms but occasionally some words (e.g., "corn") match more with Americanisms. In order to double-check this, I searched for "corn definition" in many different countries. biology-online.org, dictionary.kids.net.au, holisticshop.co.uk, horseandridergear.com, and lookwayup.com use maize. answers.com, macmillandictionary.com, a British standard, thefreedictionary, and wordnetweb.princeton.edu, a US standard, yourdictionary.com use maize and bear caveats that it means grain in the British Isles. merriam-webster.com, a US standard uses grain and specifies that usually in the British Isles means something other than maize but in the New World (e.g., everything outside of Afro-Eurasia) it means maize. dictionary.cambridge.org, a British standard says that it means grain in the UK and maize in the US, but scours no other areas. primitivestate.com, a British T-shirt company uses grain. Just to be very clear, here is a current search within Egyptian sites since it joins the Middle East with North Africa, it is the predominant source of Arabic media, it has a very strong British history and no Arab state is in the Commonwealth:
Egypt Excluding no hits, the top five Egyptian results [ 1-10] yield: [ globalegyptianmuseum.org] [ eternalegypt.org] [ bibalex.org] [ aucegypt.edu] [ alibaba.com] The first two explicitly mean grain, bearing British museum descriptions of ancient Egyptian artefacts. The other three explicitly mean maize and use it in modern scientific, legal, and commerical purposes.
Simply put, It seems the grain variant of "corn" is only employed when the British or Irish are expected in the audience but that for the rest of the planet, "corn" means maize. If you still disagree, try doing a google book count, a well-established tool in Wiktionary. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 02:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
I suspect such a Google book count would show the maize meaning of "corn" spreading from only the US and some parts of Canada in the 19th Century to everywhere but the British Isles in the 21st Century. BTW, look closely and you may notice that I did include the British and Irish searches, in both of which all five meant grain. :)-- Thecurran ( talk) 02:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
The OED does not define corn as "the chief cereal crop of a district". About 1500 words into its entry, at II 3, it says "Locally, the word, unless otherwise qualified, is often understood to denote that kind of cereal which is the leading crop of the district", going on to mention wheat "in the greater part of England", oats (Scotland and Ireland) and "in the US the word, as short for Indian corn, is restricted to maize". Using "chief cereal crop" as the lead definition means that for many "districts" of the US and Canada, where more wheat than maize is grown, "corn" should mean wheat, when it clearly does not. Equally corn is not normally used for rice, sorghum, millet or other cereals which are the chief cereal crop of large areas of the world. Venturing into OR, I would say it is only used of large grained cereals (also mentioned in another OED section) of a yellowish grain colour in bulk - not whiteish like rice or millet - but this is a pretty subjective distinction I don't suggest we add. The OED mentions that all sorts of beans, legumes etc may be called "corn" with a qualifier "black corn" etc. In North America "Indian corn" started out like this, & then dropped the qualifier later. With this exception, plain "corn" means a dryland cereal with a single stalk that is smooth for most of its length, and usually (not oats) a single ear with largish grains - whether wheat, oats, rye etc. I think all these are classified as Pooideae, but I'm not sure about that. Johnbod ( talk) 15:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I switched the style per Talk:Maize#Many_people_who_search_for_.22Corn.22_will_never_find_this_page and also seeing no real objection to that layout in the discussions above. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 17:03, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps to summarize: If an English user looks for corn and sees maize, are they surprised not to see wheat or barley, or could they reasonably be expected to proceed to click on the disambiguation link without a sense of a problem? I think the latter is the case. Also, to clarify: redirect does not imply that two terms are synonyms. IMHO, in this case, partial disambiguation is appropriate and not unfair. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 17:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Ok, here's the problem as I see it, and the most logical conclusion.
If we assume that those using American/Canadian/Australian usage of corn (the majority of native English speakers) MAY not be familiar with "maize" as a term for corn, then having this article named "Corn" with "Maize" redirecting straight here solves all problems. If the UK English speaker is looking for "Maize" they're already here. If they are looking for general cereals then a link at the top saying "Corn redirects here. For [corn as in general cereals, unsure of terminology here?] see [article name]." Problem solved, every single person looking for one or the other is within one click and we bypass the need for "Corn" going to disambig and potentially confusing any readers who have never heard of "Maize." You could keep it named "Maize" and redirect "Corn" here with a disambig link as well, but frankly I support renaming that article "Corn" since the vast majority of English speakers use that term.
I think this is something of a special case. It's not a single letter spelling difference, and it's not even commonwealth terminology vs American, it's "UK vs the rest of the world." Everyone says "Europe" but other than UK/Ireland, where else speaks English as a native language? - OldManNeptune ( talk) 11:36, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
This article is better than what it was like before. We should leave it how it is for now since there is nothing wrong with it. Also, Baseball_Bugs by your logic [4] should be moved to Sweet maize. Gune ( talk) 04:27, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I asked at the language ref desk what the Mandarin for maize is. The answer: "jade rice". So they took the name of their dominant grain (whatever the Mandarin word for rice is) and qualified it with a special adjective. Interestingly, that squares with the European approach of qualifying their "corn" (e.g. wheat) and calling maize "Indian corn". Why "jade", they didn't say. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
You meant to say sweet corn is a variety of corn. Gune ( talk) 07:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
This section is primarily based on the renewable energy feature used by corn kernels and therefore it should remain its own page. Merging this section with "Corn" would lose its integrity of representing the primary use of corn kernels in renewable energy efforts. Rather than combining this with a page talking about maize and how/where/when its grown, we should keep this page separate in order to redirect those who are seeking information on renewable energy methods. It would be cleaner, more organized and more efficient to keep this page separate. Jucunningham ( talk) 16:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Corn should redirect here; linking it to maize is very confusing to anyone from the British Isles or India.-- Gilderien Chat| List of good deeds 14:25, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved, consensus is that the primary topic of "Corn" is the topic covered at Maize. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 12:33, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Corn (disambiguation) → Corn – I propose the this page be moved over the redirect corn. There is longstanding consensus that Maize should not be at corn, and yet corn redirects there, and other uses are given this page. This is illogical and so the simplest solution would be to just have the disambiguation page at corn. The current links to corn, meaning maize, could be (and are currently being) corrected to maize, and the others, which are currently being sent to maize incorrectly, would now lead to a disambiguation page, making them either correct or much easier to correct using DAB solver. Gilderien Chat| List of good deeds 15:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Good to see an accurate definition of corn. See also 'corn exchange' or 'corn dolly'. The internet is USA centric and hence it can be hard to get an accurate picture that is representative of the other nine tenths of the world. 2A00:23C6:492B:B901:CB9:175C:5787:101F ( talk) 14:20, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Note: moved from User talk:Espoo. 162 etc. ( talk) 17:43, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
Hello Espoo, thank you for contributing. Did you however check the prior development of the article? I'm asking because I think your edit, while being nicely concise, is a regression on other improvements me and User:162_etc. made lately. Those are:
I reach out to you, because I have no interest in simply reverting your edit, and want to prevent any such misunderstanding. Instead I will concede that you were brave and WP:BOLD, whereas I settled for a minimally invasive approach. That's why I want to build on the lean structure you left, but also reintroduce the above mentioned improvements. Your feedback on the result will be highly appreciated!
Greetings, Flexperte ( talk) 03:58, 27 February 2023 (UTC)