Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 19:02:18 PDT
From: Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPIX.NET
Subject: Re: implications and inferences
--- On Sat, 14 Sep 1996 18:38:20 -0400 Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM
wrote:
Should I therefore
conclude that the phrase originated in Iowa? (Should I make the same
conclusion about the word CORN?)
You choose an unfortunate example here, Ron, because the word "corn" actually
did originate in Iowa. It is derivitive from the Cornpone Indians who grew
field corn and passed it on to the early settlers. (They also grew sweet corn,
but kept that to themselves for several generations without sharing the secret
for fear that the settlers would stop corrupting their daughters and go on an
orgy of "clambakes", a word they did not quite understand but feared with the
overwhelming terror of the unknown.)
So while sodders were growing what they called "corn", Easterners were growing
"maize". My own grandmother, who was part Fokawai, insisted until her dying
day that "corn" was uniquely a product of the tribes that lived in the
Catskill Mountain area and had nothing to do with anything remotely edible
(nor, according to her, did anythig they cooked or named).
It was only with the establishment of the railroads that the word "corn"
spread east, where it eventually supplanted the more civilized word "maize".
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