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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
In your example, however, there is in fact a distinction: "wheat" and "corn" are collective (?) nouns where "pea" and "potato" are not
Or am I begging the question--that is, in the classic meaning of the phrase
But thank you for that link. I am overwhelmed
"Pea" is a back-formed singular from an original collective "pease" giving us the back-formed plural "peas", for what that's worth. The difference in corn and peas isn't all that much when you think about the things themselves. Corn comes in ears and peas come in pods. You could count the grains of corn but you'd never say that you were counting corns, not in American English, anyway. You could say you were counting peas. However you could count ears of corns or pea pods or even grains of corn. Go figure.
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Joined: Jul 2005
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Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
Fal, thank you for that. More and more do I pity the wretched alien who has to learn our Mother Tongue
dalehileman
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Joined: Apr 2007
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Apr 2007
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Could it be that peas and potatoes are planted individually and corn & wheat are sown broadcast?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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The corn being referred to here would be maize, which is planted individually. But linguistic traditions might hold on to conventions from older definitions of the word. We still speak of dialing a phone and tracks on a CD.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
maize, which is planted individually Yep: 3 kernels to a hill; after sprouting, leave the strongest one and pull the weaker one(s).
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
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Corn originally, before there was much maize eaten by people in England, meant grains or small pieces. Corned beef is treated with larger corns of salt instead of table salt.
But saying that made me realize that I would talk about grains of wheat but a bushel of grain. Back to the countable aspect.
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