corn谷物；小麦或黑麦

【使用地区】：英国，美国

【释义】：

When in Keats’s“Ode to a Nightingale”a homesick Ruth stands“in tears amid the alien corn”(the phrase is Keats’s own and not from the King James Bible)，she is standing in a field of wheat or rye，any grain but New World corn，or maize．The English have always used the word corn to describe all grains used for food and never specifically for the grain that built the Mayan and Incan Empires．Corn derives from the Old Teutonic kurnom，which is akin to granum，the Latin word for grain．Kurnom eventually became the Old Saxon korn and then corn in Old English．The semantic confusion arose when settlers in America named corn on the cob“Indian corn”soon after Squanto brought ears to the starving Puritan colony in Massachusetts；the settlers then dropped the qualifying adjective over the years．Although the British are today increasingly using the term sweet corn for American corn，they commonly call New World corn maize，a word that derives from the Spanish maiz，which has its origins in mahiz，a Caribbean Indian tribe’s name for the plant．

在Keats(1795－1821，英国浪漫主义诗人)的《夜莺颂》里，当思乡的鲁丝“含泪站在异乡的麦田中”(该语为济慈所创，并非来源于KingJames版《圣经》)，她是站在小麦或黑麦的田野里，而不是站在美洲的玉米地里。英国人总是用corn来指所有作为食物的谷物，从不专门指马雅和印加帝国所种植的谷物。Corn源于古日耳曼语kurnom，与granum同源，granum为拉丁语，意为“谷物”。Kurnom一词最后变为古撒克逊语korn，接着又成为古英语corn。在斯匡托人把麦穗带给马萨诸塞州饥饿的清教徒殖民地后不久，每当美洲的殖民者把玉米棒子称为Indian corn时，就会引起意义混乱。在后来的数年里，殖民者干脆去掉了前面的形容词。尽管现在有越来越多的英国人用sweet corn来指美洲的玉米，但他们通常称美洲的玉米为maize。Maize源于西班牙语maiz，后者又源自mahiz。Mahiz是加勒比海岛上印地安人部落表示该谷物的名称。