CORN?
In Oxfordshire last week a local labourer began to tell a. Scottish visitor all about the harvest. She was delighted to hear how good the corn was, but was suddenly pulled up by an apparent contradiction : the corn was " wunnerful " ; but the oats weren't anything to talk about. What did the man mean ? Later she sought an explanation ; and was as surprised to learn that " corn " meant wheat in England as the labourer would have been to know that it means oats in parts of Scotland. The word is, of course, baffling. It has at least four translations : wheat in England, oats in Scotland, maize in America, and grain in general. Because it is a generic word there is a tendency to use it locally for the standard crop of the district. It is arguable that "there is corn in Egypt" meant there is barley, which was the first of the grains to become popular in the East. Did not an enthusiastic Egyptian king tour the world to preach the qualities of this crop for both- food and drink ? W. BEACH THOMAS. '
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