Talk:Corn (disambiguation)

Things have catagories

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)

redirect?

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)

Quite right too. Barley was missing from the list, so I added it. Can corn really refer to oats? It was used to generalise over wheat and barley where I grew up, and I can see it being used for rye by extension, but I'm suspicious about oats. Also, is 'corn can be used to refer to... Korn' correct? BarryNorton 11:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

As to the first question, I think I saw a comment that it was used that way in Scotland, though I don't know where I saw that. Might inquire at Talk:Oats. As to the second, I have no idea.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 20:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It's actually at Oats#Cultivation in the Oats article.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 04:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Corn is not a synonym for maize

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. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.225.129.31 (talk • contribs)

The Corn vs Maize discussion occurs often at Talk:Maize, please read those comments and bring up any conversation about it there. Jeepday (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Could those that use the word corn as a synonym for grain please note that only the UK uses said meaning and that most English speakers don't use the word that way? outside here has incorrect implications; your use neither dominates nor surrounds ours.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

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).

References

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)

Cleanup

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)

You know what, scratch that, I really, really do not care anymore. I'm trying to make the page look nicer and be more useful, but if that means spending precious minutes of my life debating with people whose biggest obsession is whether corn means the stuff that comes on a cob or not, it's really not worth it. Keep your page, put as many links on it as you want, make it as ugly as you want, I don't care, I'm taking it off my watch list and since when I say corn, I mean corn, I don't expect I'll ever have reason to revisit it. Propaniac (talk) 05:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Question Has a user violated the spirit of the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule? Jeepday (talk) 13:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Corn v barley and wheat

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)

I'm not sure that your suspicions have any place in a wp article but, either way, I have solved the problem by putting them all in "See also". Abtract (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I've reinstated the claim (for British English), with a reference. With respect, I don't think that the "see also" section is the appropriate place for this, since it doesn't make clear that these are the primary meaning of the word (in Britain). Grover cleveland (talk) 19:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This is an international/multicultural encyclopedia. My 'See also' solution solves the problem in a way that shouldn't be a problem to anyone, I am surprised you do not see this. This is not the place for "claims". Your use of more than one link in a line shows that it might be prudent for you to view MOS:DAB before making too many more edits to dab pages - there is a lot to learn as I have discovered. Also you might like to look at some of the discusions above where consensus seems to favour non-inclusion. I hope this helps. Abtract (talk) 19:42, 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)

Hi Abtract. Thanks for your arguments. I'll respond to them below.

• The articles on barley and wheat do not mention corn as an alternative name.

They do now. I've added referenced claims to each of them.

• This is an international/multicultural encyclopedia.

Exactly. So the usage of British English deserves to be mentioned, along with the usage in other varieties of English.

• My 'See also' solution solves the problem in a way that shouldn't be a problem to anyone

The problem is that in British English wheat, barley and oats are a primary meaning of the word "corn". Putting links to these in the "See Also" section does nothing to indicate this. According to WP:SEEALSO the "See also" section is for "a list of internal links to related Wikipedia articles". Wheat, barley and oats are far more than merely "related" to corn, they are the actual denotation of the word in British English. For a speaker of British English relegating wheat barley and oats to a "see also" would be like relegating maize to the "see also" section for a speaker of American English.

That would be 19th-century "British English", would it ? Since the Corn Laws are no longer a subject of hot political debate, who in Britain still calls wheat "corn" ?Eregli bob (talk) 18:12, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

• This is not the place for "claims".

They are not mere "claims". They are supported by a reference. I can find more references if necessary.

• Your use of more than one link in a line shows that it might be prudent for you to view MOS:DAB before making too many more edits to dab pages

My apologies. I therefore propose that wheat, barley and oats be reinstated in the list of alternate meanings with one link on each line.

• you might like to look at some of the discusions above where consensus seems to favour non-inclusion

I don't see any. Can you point me to a precise link?

I know there have been revert wars over this, and I have no intention of kicking off another. I have no problem with maize being the first link on this disambiguation page. But wheat, barley and oats can be the meaning of "corn" in British English just as much as "maize" is in American English. I really don't see why anyone should object to putting them as alternative meanings of the word. Can we really justify putting an emulator for the Nintendo 64 in the list of meanings of the word "corn" and rejecting wheat, which is the primary association of the word in the minds of millions of people of British origin? I'd be very interested to hear what other editors think. Thanks. Grover cleveland (talk) 20:33, 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)

Thanks. So there would be no objection to put wheat barley and oats in the dab list, one on each line? Grover cleveland (talk) 20:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't find a mention in Wheat. Abtract (talk) 20:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

here. Grover cleveland (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

peppercorn

I notice that user Abtract found time

00:05, 8 August 2008 Abtract (Talk | contribs) (830 bytes) (this is the standard way) (undo)

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)

Indeed. There are two reasons for preferring a redirect through Peppercorn (disambiguation). First, there may come a time when Peppercorn (currently a dab page) is used for a primary topic and the dab info gets moved to Peppercorn (disambiguation); if and when this happens, there will be no need to change this page because it is already set up that way. Second, using "disambiguation" in the page name makes it clearer to readers and they are not surprised when they arrive at a dab page, albeit one not actually called by that name. This is all covered by policy or the manual of style somewhere but I'm damned if I can find it right now ... I will get back to you when I do. Abtract (talk) 11:24, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Right here. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes thank you. Abtract (talk) 17:27, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

reversion of rewrite

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)

Problem fixed, I think. Somehow I interpreted that the dab was only named "Corn". This error has been corrected, and I apologize for slightly misunderstanding you. How does it look now? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You have won your argument; corn redirects to maize, but at least can we have the primary dictionary definition ('main

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:

If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)".

The primary meaning in this case is entirely dependent on who, where and when the writer or speaker is. E.g. as someone else pointed out, none of the many references to 'corn' in the bible refer to maize. Anyway I give up. The forces of US-centrism have defeated me and I will edit no more. Rachel Pearce (talk) 23:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The point is that a dictionary definition of the word corn is the main cereal crop of a region, and hence it means corn in North America and some other countries, and other grains in other parts of the world and at other times. Rachel Pearce (talk) 11:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

That definition of the word is not the prevailing one in the US; an American would not interpret corn to mean anything but maize, no matter what the main cereal crop of the region in question is. The Harper-Collins German Dictionary has as its first definition of corn to be (US maize) Mais.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:05, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

A German dictionary is a curious source for the English language. I have used Merriam-Webster online :http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corn. Rachel Pearce (talk) 11:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Bilingual dictionaries are frequently good sources because they don't have the space to haver, nor can they assume that the reader really knows the basic meaning of words like Corn. [Princeton University's WordNet http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=corn&sub=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h=] lists the primary meaning of corn as maize, and your definition with a preceding (Great Britain). It's certainly wrong to say that it's used for corn in non-British English because it really means "the main cereal crop of a region", because that's not what it means in non-British English, and etymology is the province of a dictionary, not an encyclopedia.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't get it. Is there some sort of taboo against including the dictionary definition in the disambiguation page? Surely it would help to understand why it can mean so many different things? Why is my attempt to add this phrase or something like it repeatedly edited out? I can understand rephrasing it, but why remove it altogether? WP:DISAMBIG 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)

Prevailing non-American use of 'corn'

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)

As the "veteran" referred to, I want to make it clear that longevity does not automatically confer any privileges or greater legitimacy to my edits. I should not have edit warred here and should have explained the reasons for reverting here on the talk page. As for the reasons, I agree with Steelbeard1 about the national usage -- Wikipedia is not the American encyclopedia. But beyond that, edits such as this are unhelpful because 1) the primary topic at Corn clearly describes the sense of the term as referring to multiple grains and not only maize. If there is a problem with that being the primary topic, it should be discussed at that article; 2) Except in relatively rare situation, there should not be more that one blue links per line on a disambiguation page, per WP:MOSDAB; pulling maize out of the context of the list of other grains makes that list seem out of place. In context, maize is simply one of several types of grain that are referred to as "corn". older ≠ wiser 20:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

According to both corn and the Princeton lexical database I pointed to above, the national usage is the one you're pushing; corn claims that Canada and Australia share the US usage, and the Princeton database straight-out labels it as UK. Maize is not simply one of several types of grain labeled corn; it is the grain known as corn to most of the world's English speakers. I think this does classify as a relatively rare situation; there aren't that many words in confusing contention between British and World English.

Corn doesn't describe maize for the same reason that airplane redirects to fixed-wing aircraft. It's a compromise, and it has a big blue disambiguation header to point out that compromise. That doesn't mean this page shouldn't recognize the fact that the majority of the world's English speakers, in at least three countries, do in fact use the word to mean solely maize, and that that dominates by at least a thousand to one any usage of the word to specifically refer to any other grain.

The list is out of place; disambiguation pages are supposed to disambiguate. No one is coming here looking for the oats page, and if they do have a reference to corn that means oats, the current list gives them no context to figure out what is meant.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you think anyone is pushing a national usage. The idea is to present things neutrally. Currently, the article at corn is about the generic grain usage. By definition that article is the primary topic of corn (disambiguation), and the intro on the disambiguation should reflect the meaning of the primary topic. If you want to dispute that that is the primary topic for corn, then that would require moving corn to some other title. No one is going to get to corn (disambiguation) by accident. There is a very clear disambiguation hatnote at the top of corn directing readers to maize for the prevalent North American and Australian usage. The only way a reader would get to this page is from a disambiguation page or by a hatnote on another article (or if they selected it from a search results page). As such it is unlikely that maize is the target they are seeking as there are more direct links to maize in those pages. older ≠ wiser 17:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

If national usage is not an issue, then what did you two bring it up? It's unlikely that users get to any disambiguation page without going to the primary topic; so why does every single disambiguation page mention the primary topic right at the top of the article? Logically, that doesn't mean that major secondary topics get completely buried; they should get listed below the primary topic and clearly noted as the major secondary topics. I've seen no disambiguation page with a list like this one has, without important and minor topics jumbled together with no annotation.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

What's the advantage in being vague? Why don't we say where corn is used to mean maize, instead of saying "many parts of the world"?--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you definitively say that corn only means maize in the US, Canada and Australia? It is also in common usage in other parts as well. There is little point to being overly precise if it is not accurate. older ≠ wiser 20:08, 7 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

Q: "What is the difference between Britain and America?"

A: "In Britain they think 100 miles is a long way; in America they think 100 years is a long time."

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

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

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)

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)

I have made several changes which should improve clarity and have moved some of the discussion to this page. Grantmidnight (talk) 03:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks. -kotra (talk) 03:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

possible move?

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)

Please read through all the talk pages and archives. This has been done before and undone, etc. Rmhermen (talk) 00:51, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That may be the case, but the fact that most "corn" links are referring to maize is still important. Whether or not it has been done before is not the issue. Tad Lincoln (talk) 00:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

No, the issue is whether you intend to engage in yet another edit war on this question now that it's been quiet for awhile. Can you say, "Deja vu all over again"? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} ::::carrots 01:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Umm...sorry? I have not idea what you're talking about. I was never involved in an edit war that I know of, and I haven't even made any edits to this page. Your accusations are baseless and inappropriate. Tad Lincoln (talk) 01:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

No, I did not mean that you were in an edit war. I meant that by messing with things, you could start another one. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 01:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, there was no need to be rude about it. I was just trying to help, and I certainly wasn't planning on starting an edit war. Tad Lincoln (talk) 01:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

And I was also just trying to help, in my usual tactless way. You can try whatever you want. Just don't say you weren't warned. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 02:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes it is best to wikt:let sleeping dogs lie. older ≠ wiser 02:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion (whether constructive or ill-advised) ≠ "edit war." And suggesting that someone might "intend to engage in yet another edit war" is hardly the same as suggesting that his/her actions "could start another one." —David Levy 02:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

After I typed that, it occurred to me that "trigger" would have been a better term to use. But just then I heard a noise, and I had to investigate. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree that discussion of this nature is likely to trigger an edit war. On the contrary, it's the lack of such discussion that tends to cause one. —David Levy 03:17, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, maybe it will be different this time than it was the last time. Knock yourselves out. Just don't say you weren't warned! Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not advocating the proposed changes or even a revival of the discussion. I'm disputing your assertion that said discussion is likely to result in an edit war. An edit war would arise if the changes were performed without discussion (and resultant consensus). —David Levy 03:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

As Rmhermen said, you need to study what's happened before on this article, before you go to that conclusion. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

What edit war(s) do you attribute to such discussion? —David Levy 03:39, 17 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)

Non-IE/UK English

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:

• wikipedia.org
• campsilos.org
• whfoods.com
• urbanext.illinois.edu
• cmegroup.com

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:

• cornex.co.uk
• cornx.net
• kingslynncornexchange.co.uk
• cornexchangenew.com
• bedfordcornexchange.co.uk

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:

• ontariocorn.org
• peanutsandcorn.com
• edmontoncornmaze.ca
• cornmaze.ca
• lacombecornmaze.com

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:

• freshforkids.com.au
• cornthins.com
• sl.farmonline.com.au
• abc.net.au
• teachingtreasures.com.au

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:

• cornexchange.ie
• heritageireland.ie
• donegalonsunday.com
• dublintheatrefestival.com
• daft.ie

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:

• biodiversityexplorer.org
• iol.co.za
• cbn.co.za
• safex.co.za
• capetown.gumtree.co.za

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:

• da.gov.ph
• bworld.com.ph
• gmanews.tv
• mb.com.ph
• bar.gov.ph

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:

• 3news.co.nz
• trout.auckland.ac.nz
• nzetc.org
• nzherald.co.nz
• diabetes.org.nz

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:

• go-jamaica.com
• gracefoods.com
• jis.gov.jm
• seprod.com
• golocaljamaica.com

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:

• tntisland.com
• newsday.co.tt
• namistt.com
• ttonline.org
• library2.nalis.gov.tt

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:

• flowersofindia.net
• asiancorrespondent.com
• http://food.sify.com/nonvegrecipes/ingredient/egg/Plain_Corn_Soup_with_Vegetables-201712
• livemint.com
• commodityonline.com

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:

• ngrguardiannews.com
• blog.savetheplanetnews.com
• nigerianstat.gov.ng
• abu.edu.ng
• sunnewsonline.com

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:

• spiegel.de
• cornrecordings.com
• gnome-look.org
• recipes.howstuffworks.com
• dw-world.de

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:

• coq.inria.fr
• koreus.com
• bakeryandsnacks.com
• www2.cnrs.fr
• unesco.org

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:

• apakistannews.com
• thenews.com.pk
• pakissan.com
• pvj.com.pk
• dawn.com

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:

• corn.it
• fooltribe.com
• codexalimentarius.net
• designboom.com
• nicatour.net

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:

• yellowcorn.co.jp
• tokyofoundation.org
• j-cast.com
• search.japantimes.co.jp
• tge.or.jp

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:

• c-corn.cs.ru.nl
• allaboutfeed.net
• bromelia.com
• cornboys.nl
• worldticketshop.com

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:

• prensa.ugr.es
• testigosdejehova.es
• facebook.es
• libertaddigital.com
• popcorn.euniceproductions.com

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:

• bugday.org
• vidivodo.com
• thy.com
• topcorn.com.tr
• tmo.gov.tr

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:

• biocorn.pl
• cornlanguage.com
• corn.net.pl
• [1]
• dailymotion.pl

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:

• google.cn
• iciba.com
• jobs.chinahr.com
• dce.com.cn
• bbs.chinaz.com

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)

That's very nice original research. However, until you convince other dictionaries to change their definition of the term, the WP:OR is just that. There is no question (at least so far as I'm concerned) that corn is synonymous with maize in most of the English-speaking world. However, your Google searches are inconsequential when there are dictionaries and other reliable sources that state very explicitly and often as the first definition that corn is any of various cereal plants or grains. older ≠ wiser 18:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

"Maize" is the proper English name for this item. It is unambiguous. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with both of the above, also please remove the headlines, they mess up the talk page. And yes, "corn" is "the most common crop of the region in question". Unless you put AE=all languages, of course?--Flammingo^Hey 21:07, 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)

Great ;-) Also, the notion that corn is now that which the US-Americans think it is still applies to... yes, the US citizens, and I'm certain the internet is full of (US)American English, so googling "corn" doesnt do the trick.--Flammingo^Hey 21:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I hope the new version is satisfactory?--Flammingo^Hey 21:30, 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)

Thanks, but your labors are nonetheless Original research. Meriam-webster, which you mention above, [2] gives generic grain s the first definition, with caveat that it is chiefly dialectic usage. The second sense is also generic, "a small hard seed", with no usage note. The third sense, is of some interest: "the seeds of a cereal grass and especially of the important cereal crop of a particular region (as wheat in Britain, oats in Scotland and Ireland, and Indian corn in the New World and Australia)" I don't see this as supporting your argument. M-W clearly gives precedence to generic (or inclusive) senses as meaning grain in general, and specifically Indian corn in some countries. As a side note, [zea mays http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/corn Random House and American Heritage] both list Indian corn or sea mays as first use and then list a generic grain sense. In short, while there is no question in my mind that "corn" is synonymous with zea mays in most of the world (and bears mentioning first on the disambiguation page), the generic sense is not so uncommon. older ≠ wiser 04:21, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

We learn from this that corn=maize, if you are an American, and some dictionaries will for that reason say corn is what Americans think it is. So what? as long as this isn't the American Wikipedia, there's no proof in any of these articles. Sources given.--Flammingo^Hey 09:14, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

OED reference / American Bias (again)

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)

The way this strong American English policy goes, this article has no room to go beyond "Corn is a term for a cereal crop or its grain, such as:"; and, mind you, it's only a disambiguation page. There has never, now and in previous discussions obviouysly as well, been room for more than that. And most certainly not for anything that implies any kind of "corn is maize", which you have possibly sort of admitted it is not, or have you?--Flammingo^Hey 10:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't follow this, & certainly have no US bias, as coming from England. Johnbod (talk) 16:25, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with taking a minimalist approach to the lede. More appropriate for a disambiguation page in any case (to avoid making factual assertions beyond identification of potentially ambiguous topics). For the record, there used to be a page discussing the "corn" as a word [3], but that was redirected back to the disambiguation page in April, with the rationale of redirect to corn per WP:NOTDICDEF (see [Talk:Corn (term) here] for limited discussion). Personally, I don't agree with such a narrow interpretation of Wikipedia is not a dictionary -- where words have complex and varied histories, there is room for encyclopedic treatment of the word. older ≠ wiser 12:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree - I didn't know that page, which should be resurrected, & improved - moved to Corn (grain) probably. Johnbod (talk) 16:25, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree - It was moved here, this page still looks the same as it was, unfortunatly; anyway, restore, and how about an "etymology" section?--Flammingo^Hey 15:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

And they are indeed all Pooideae, all but maize. Taking that into the group, all these crops are Poaceae, the family of grasses. That article also mentions the use of poaceae as main food source.--Flammingo^Hey 15:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

redirect + semi-disambiguation top notice

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)

In the European countries in which the language of business is English, the word is "maize", because "corn" means something else, as has been discussed many times here. In German, the word for "corn" in general is Korn, and the word for Indian Corn (which is the proper name for this stuff if you don't say "maize") is Mais. In French, the generic term for "corn" is grain and the word for what Americans call corn is maïs. In Spanish, the word for "corn" in general is cereal and the word for American-style corn is maíz. Do you notice a trend here? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

As I see it, there is a difference between a word which has two meaning everywhere (one of which is dominant), and one where there are different dominant meanings in different regions. In this second case, I prefer the article to disambiguate, so that people from wherever they are are able to find their dominant meaning through disambiguation, symmetrically, rather than via someone else's dominant meaning. This avoids the debate about how many Wikipedians use each word. As there are no definitive statistics on this, it would be a rather tricky argument to conclude. Stephen B Streater (talk) 19:33, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, no, that doesn't avoid the debate, because people have been complaining on Talk:Maize how the disambiguation page was unclear and that they couldn't easily find that article because it still doesn't use the title they know, instead it uses a strange word.

In any case, like I told BB earlier, the end result is still a compromise - even if the "corn" redirect is now tilted in favor of the American meaning, the page users end up at is still called the way the British call it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we're discussing German and Spanish terms on an English Wikipedia. Especially since there are competently written German and Spanish Wikipedias. If that's the case why not take the Chinese word into consideration as well, they produce a mighty lot of corn after all. I'm not trying to be a language imperialist, but those supporting "Maize" as the article title are pulling some tricks of logic to justify it. - OldManNeptune (talk) 23:17, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The international language of the business world is English, and in that world, it's called "maize". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:24, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not entirely accurate. German is still used as an international language in many regions, as is French (and Russian). However, this is beyond the scope of Wikipedia, and your assertion is disingenious since the areas that will use "maize" are almost certainly those in Europe, hence those using British English. Do you have evidence that when, say, the Chinese do business with the Australians, they use "maize," a term which neither party uses? International use of English tends to follow whichever region influenced it or whichever region they are most likely to communicate with. Spanish speakers in the New World regularly use the word "corn" in the American sense, despite their native word being closer to maize. - OldManNeptune (talk) 00:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I would definitely be interested to know what Chinese word is used for maize. It might be transliterated to something that sounds like "maize" or it could be something that sounds like "corn" (doubtful, since they don't do "R's" very well) or it could be something totally different. Let us know what you find out. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:42, 10 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)

Maybe, except there's no such term. Sweet corn is a variety of maize. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:38, 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)

What? That doesn't "square" with your arguments at all. If that "squared" with your arguments, in those areas where barley is the dominant crop, they'd call maize "jade barley" (or some other name with barley--yellow barley, ear barley, whatever) and in those areas where wheat is predominant, they'd call maize "jade wheat" or something along those lines. 98.82.1.253 (talk) 20:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You meant to say sweet corn is a variety of corn. Gune (talk) 07:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Not worth merging

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)

If anything, you might consider merging the article into Pellet stove#Corn stove. Corn kernels is not really notable topic by itself, though. A name change that better describes the topic might be useful, something like 'Corn as fuel'. --Aflafla1 (talk) 21:55, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Corn

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)

If you think there is no primary topic for the term "corn", then you should propose moving corn (disambiguation) to corn. Redirecting corn to corn (disambiguation) would result in a Malplaced disambiguation page. In addition, merely changing the redirect results in hundreds of broken links. You might want to review earlier discussions on this page as well as at Talk:Maize (and its archives). older ≠ wiser 14:37, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok thank you, I shall do that now. I might also change some of those links to Maize.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 15:05, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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)

• Strong oppose I think you're misreading the situation. There's still every indication that, based on common usage, Maize is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term "corn," so the status quo is just as it should be. Nor is the maize/corn issue as settled as you suggest; both RMs have ended in no consensus, so maize has stood in large part simply because of WP:RETAIN. --BDD (talk) 19:32, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Maize is still the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term "corn", as implied by those previous debates regarding the Maize article, among other reasons. Such redirects are permitted per WP:D#Redirecting to a primary topic. Pages should not be moved solely to make it "easier to correct using DAB solver", or because it may seem illogical or confusing to readers in a few countries that are unfamiliar with how a term is used differently around the world (that's what hatnotes are for). Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I support our retention of the title "Maize", but as noted above, this request is based upon a misreading of the situation and a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's conventions. —David Levy 02:52, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Clear, longstanding primary topic of "corn" is maize. I would go so far as to say that most people don't think of the term "maize" at all when considering the product, and that "maize" could credibly be moved to "corn" as the common name. bd2412 T 11:58, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Corn only means maize in the USA. Elsewhere it means various other things. BD2412's argument is false - most people outside the USA would not think of maize when considering corn. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:19, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would contest that this is most strongly a characteristic of American English, but at Talk:Maize, there's plenty of evidence of this usage in other national varieties as well. This could be an effect of agricultural imperialism, but it's not quite right to say Americans are the only ones who call maize corn. --BDD (talk) 16:11, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Googling for "corn" turns up page after page about cultivated maize, and nothing about barley, oats, rye, wheat, cereal grains generally, places named Corn, the color corn, the Corn emulator, ingrown calluses, the 2004 film Corn, or people with the surname Corn—with the exception that Wiktionary mentions other senses. Those are all of the other topics listed on the disambiguation page. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC suggests that one topic for an equivocal word is primary if searches for that topic are more frequent than all other topics with the same name combined. That appears to be the situation here. This does not contradict giving the page about this topic a different name, "maize". The name for a page should be precise and unambiguous; see WP:PRECISION and WP:FLORA. The word "corn" has peculiar ambiguities related to geography even though when people search for "corn", they are usually looking for information about maize. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 04:45, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

I agree that redirecting "Corn" page to Maize is very confusing.

I read here above that " Maize is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC". Maybe that someone can thinks so, but other someone can think that primary topic is Grain, Wheat or a generic Cereal or a Grain of them. This disclose that a primary topic does not actually exist.

p.s. more misleading, while the article page Corn is a redirect to Maize, the talk page Talk:Corn is a redirect to this page Talk:Corn (disambiguation), so something seems wrong or -at least- odd. --79.7.134.52 (talk) 17:02, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Corn has not been a redirect to here since 2015. Rmhermen (talk) 21:03, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Corn not maize

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)

Your edit on Corn (disambiguation)

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:

1. Bringing the definition in line with wiktionary:corn [while your edit reintroduces "principal crop of a region"]
2. Having links to all relevant articles that "corn" might refer to [your edit removed grain, which I added]. Arguably seed should probably also be there. After all, giving those references is the main purpose of a disambiguation page. (The limit being, where something is just a dictionary meaning of the word, but does not refer to an actual topic - like "a small hard particle".)
3. Having an explicit reference to corn, which seems reasonable in an article named "Corn (disambiguation)", even though it is leading to the same article as the equally necessary maize. [Added by me, removed by your edit].
4. Listing said Corn reference first [moved up by 162 etc., moved down in your edit]. Firstly, while not being a hard rule, most disambiguation pages will start with the WP:PrimaryTopic (if there is one) in bold as the first entry. It's somehow expected and it looks nice. Second, corn meaning maize is the Primary Topic for good reasons: this is by far the most common usage of the word and therefore should go first. Don't anybody get me wrong - I am a strong advocate against “Corn“ as Article Title, because of it's ambiguity and despite it's commonness (with "Maize" being the best choice following WP:NATURAL).

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)

I just saved my edit and would like to add one more comment.

There have been a lot of discussions about where in the world "corn" mostly means maize and where it has a broader meaning. I think the proper place to elaborate on that is the existing Names section of the main Article (or Talk:Maize), and not the Corn (disambiguation) page. Therefore I chose to list both understandings in the most neutral way without getting into any more detail than "Corn most commonly refers to …" and "Corn may also refer to …". Flexperte (talk) 04:59, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with your efforts, but the result has again switched back to a US-centric explanation. I will try to edit it as little as possible. Let me know here if you agree with my attempt. Wiktionary is not a reliable source and is therefore explicitly forbidden as a Wikipedia source. I've corrected the Wiktionary entry. --Espoo (talk) 06:32, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Oof, no, that's bad. Disambiguation pages are a list of links - explanations should be as brief as possible. Citing sources is done in the article itself. Wikipedia consensus is that the primary topic for corn is maize. I've reverted the page. 162 etc. (talk) 15:09, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

OK, I'll reduce the visible explanations but will keep them hidden so people don't revert to the again US-centric version whose content is simply misleading and wrong for most of the world's population. --Espoo (talk) 16:22, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I've updated the dabpage again. I don't think your wording implying that corn=maize is exclusive to North America is accurate - see a recent RM discussion which cites many instances of this definition being commonly used in the UK. 162 etc. (talk) 17:41, 27 February 2023 (UTC)