Lindsey Davis, for those who don't know, writes detective stories set in Flavian Rome. Published on both sides of the Atlantic, she has this to say to a North American reader who queried her use of British English:
http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/rants.htm#corn .

She mentions elsewhere that her USn publisher changed the title of the first novel in her series from "The Silver Pigs" to "Silver Pigs" on the grounds that USn readers would find the title with the definite article "a little heavy". Would our USn members care to explain or comment?

Bingley

All right, whoa, hold up--first--is she saying in her reply, that in England corn is what we call wheat? Secondly--I still don't get the expression 'ears of corn on his head'. Even picturing wheat, why on earth would anyone wear wheat on his head? And if she meant the corn = outdated humor, why would she say the 'ears of' part? Why wouldn't she simply say that his humor was always corny, or something like that*? I was envisioning some sort of weird hat, maybe along the lines of the Cat in the Hat striped high-toppers that were popular with kids here in recent years.

As to the title--now that I think about it, I'd be more inclined to pick up a book called Silver Pigs than I would one called The Silver Pigs. The former just sounds more intriguing, somehow--makes me want to see what these silver pigs are like. But I can't say why!


* Secret--I do know it's an expression; just wanted to point out how it sounds strange, to my "ears"! :-)

Yes, to me corn definitely means wheat. The yellow stuff originating in the Americas, I would call sweet corn.

I assume we are meant to envisage the Arval Brethren as wearing something like a wreath woven out of ears of corn.

Bingley

A) I haven't the foggiest notion what that editor is driving at. I see no difference between Silver Pigs and The Silver Pigs.

2) We have sweet corn, but it is distinguished from field corn. The former is meant for human consumption and the latter for animals. They are both maize, which is how I thought the Brits would refer to what USns call corn. Or either that or Indian corn, one.

Of course, both Jackie and Bingley are correct--

Corn is the term for the native or common grain of a place.. In the US it is maize, In other places it is wheat, in other places rye, or barley, or oats.. we in US sometimes forget that-- and think corn as being specific to maize, rather than specificly the corn of the americas, i.e., maize!

Did she consider that the ears of corn these Roman folks were wearing about their heads was perhaps not wheat, but barley?

Corn is the term for the native or common grain of a place. In the US it is maize, In other places it is wheat, in other places rye, or barley, or oats. we in US sometimes forget that-- and think corn as being specific to maize

I was suprised to read this, and upon LIU have my doubts.

Per bartleby, each of the grain-names noted refers to a is a distinct genus:
corn: 1a. Any of numerous cultivated forms of a widely grown, usually tall annual cereal grass (Zea mays)
wheat: Any of various annual cereal grasses of the genus Triticum ... especially T. aestivum
rye: 1. A cereal grass (Secale cereale) widely cultivated for its grain.
barley: 1. A grass in the genus Hordeum, ... 2. The grain of H. vulgare or its varieties,
oat: 1. often oats ... a. Any of various grasses of the genus Avena, especially A. sativa, widely cultivated for their edible grains.

Bartleby does also give the above-blue definition for "corn", but only as a teriary and "chiefly British" meaning.

I don't think I can really go along with the notion that corn = wheat in England. I've never seen any literary evidence of such a confusion.

Interestingly enough, there was certainly no confusion between wheat and Indian corn in the 1840s. During the Irish Famine (1844-1849) Ireland was still exporting bumper crops of wheat to England and other overseas markets while at the same time importing quantities of maize from the US to feed the starving Irish. Not enough of course, but more than your average laissez-faire government of the period actually wanted to provide from the public purse.

What little they did provide didn't do the Irish much good anyway. Without wanting to have a swipe at the Irish, they simply didn't know what to do with it, potatoes being the staple prior to the blight.

They tried boiling it, parching it, roasting it and even eating it raw. The average peasant family wouldn't have been able to grind it even if they had known that they should do so. Grinding stones weren't exactly thick on the ground, although at the time cyst nematode certainly was.

It caused a lot of illness, including perforated stomach linings because, as we all know today, maize is not broken down by the human gut without considerable pre-processing. And even where it didn't cause sickness it still didn't provide much nitrition because it wasn't digested properly.

Certainly the first settlers in US called wheat "corn". But the Indian maize planted in hills could produce a lot of food in fields not yet cleared of stones and stumps and thus unsuitable for growing wheat. And each family could grind its own maize far more readily than they could wheat. So maize predominated until "corn" meant maize.

Faldage: I see no difference between Silver Pigs and The Silver Pigs
Without knowing what the silver pigs are...
Try this. Conceptualise a silver pig. Now think of a few more and you have Silver Pigs. Now show me a particular herd of silver pigs, and you have The Silver Pigs. Maybe there is an assumption of definity (can I ® that) in the US which negates the need for "The".

What I don't understand is the reader's problem with "ears of corn". It actually makes more sense to me using the American definition than the British. An "ear of corn" is a common term, easily visualised, and made into headwear with not much difficulty. I have never heard the term ear of wheat nor can I imagine how an ear of wheat would look. Weaving the headwear out of wheat defeats the stupidity (and corniness) of the idea.

Conceptualise a silver pig. Now think of a few more and you have Silver Pigs. Now show me a particular herd of silver pigs, and you have The Silver Pigs.

How one can tell whether a group of pigs is a herd or just a bunch of randomly collected pigs is beyond me unless it requires an intimate knowledge of pig social dynamics that I feel I would prefer to keep beyond me.

the reader's problem with "ears of corn". It actually makes more sense to me using the American definition than the British. An "ear of corn" is a common term, easily visualised, and made into headwear with not much difficulty.

Once again you baffle me. Ears of maize run about 6 to 12 inches long, are 2 to 3 inches in diameter and nowhere near flexible enough to form into headgear. But that aside, imagining a bunch of Flavian Romans mounting an expedition across the Ocean Stream to a totally unknown land to get the raw material for these headdresses boggles the mind.

I didn't know until just now that the "ear" of corn is totally unrelated to hearing organ.

"It caused a lot of illness, including perforated stomach linings because, as we all know
today, maize is not broken down by the human gut without considerable pre-processing.
And even where it didn't cause sickness it still didn't provide much nitrition because it
wasn't digested properly"

The aborigines in Massachusetts had no trouble with corn. I have seen the stones they ground maize on, with dinnerplate sized depressions in a stone of suitable flatness and hardness. I do not know how they cooked it, since they apparently did not have pottery. My guess would be that they made little cakes of moistened ground meal on a small flat stone placed near the fire. I have never heard of digestive problems such as CK mentions. The Indians also grew beans, which together with maize have a desirable balance of proteins and vitamins. I would guess they also had to crush the beans.

To be honest, I don't see why she would be in such a snit about translating.

If her book is to be sold in France or Spain won't it be translated into French and Spanish. Ah, I can see it now, everybody nodding and saying, "of course, it's a different language."

Now, look back over all the time you have been on this Board. It is an undeniable fact that English can vary greatly from one continent to an other. So it is English - but an English different enough to make certain passages of her book unintelligible.

"Look it up," she says. Well, doesn't it follow that she would look it up in an England/English dictionary whereas the reader would look it up in an American/English dictionary and therefore might not get the same definition.

If she would not bat an eye at a French translation I think it is plainly antagonistic not to translate it to American English, or NZ or Australian English for that matter. The markets are big enough.

You cannot argue "creative stifling" Her creativity is being negated by the fact that the Americans don't know what she is saying. You can't appreciate something you don't understand.

The reaction is that of a spoiled writer, crossing her arms and saying "we speak the correct English, you guys just better tow the line and get an education" (as seen in her LIU quote). But it is not the correct English - just a different one.

Let her book sales die in the Americas and then she if she hums the same tune.

I believe the same holds true for American, and any other, writers. They should consider the markets they sell to and translate accordingly.

To spare Faldage's anti-porcine sentiments, I should point out that the pigs in question are ingots of silver.

For more information (alas unillustrated) about the Arval Brethren and their headgear see:
later edit (url shortened courtesy of Max)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?N45A5225
Sorry about the long url. If somebody gives me the url for Max's url shortener, I'll try that.

Bingley

Kieva has taken issue with the idea that corn is the common grain of the place, pointing out that is chiefly a british defination-- making the point, that even simple words like corn could cause confusion between american readers and british! as CK points out, during the famine, importing and exporting grain from ireland was regulated by the Corn Laws-- and there is no one corn in the UK, since as Samuel Johnson noted-- Oats are something that are fed to horse in England, but feed the people in Scotland...

Corn meanwhile goes back to:

ENTRY:          g-no
DEFINITION:  Grain. Oldest form *-no-, becoming *g-no- in centum languages. 
                   1a. corn1, from Old English corn, grain; b. kernel, from Old English 
                   derivative noun cyrnel, seed, pip; c. einkorn, from Old High German 
                   korn, grain. a–c all from Germanic *kornam. 2. garner, garnet, grain,
                  gram2, granadilla, granary, grange, grani-, granita, granite, granule,
                  grenade, grenadine; filigree, grosgrain, pomegranate, from Latin
                  grnum, grain. (In Pokorny er- 390.) 

(from Bartleby's too)

and bingley's points out the pigs in question are ignots-- which makes perfect sense now that i think about it, but i have only heard of pig iron which was the raw iron an a black smith might buy as stock-- and use to form into what ever. Black smiths where not smelters.. they didn't extract the iron from the ore, they just worked pig iron that they purchased. i thought of bringing it up a few weeks ago, when we had our pig/boar/sow, etc.. thread but it seems to way off tangent--but its nice to see it coming up here..
any know why its pig iron?

I was suprised to read this, and upon LIU have my doubts.

I agree, Helen. Can’t see there is a lot of discussion about it, Keiva – even the AHD refers to the word’s etymology as [Middle English, grain, from Old English.]

It may be only ”chiefly British”, but the UK has had some influence on the development of the English language, and it is the wider meaning current outside the USA which also has given us such formations as ‘cornloft’ for granary, ‘corn-law’ relating to grain imports, and even ‘corn-rig’ from Scotland meaning a strip of ground on which oats are grown.

My trusty old Chambers offers this for the noun: a grain, hard particle: a kernel, small hard seed: collectively seeds of cereal plants, or the plants themselves: esp. (in England) wheat, (in Scotland and Ireland) oats, (in N America) maize… and adds v.t. to make granular: to sprinkle with grains of salt… which adds to the etymological baggage to do with granularity.

Of course, the prevalence of Merkin Kulcha has widened the currency of the narrow meaning…

and speaking of widening, Helen PLEASE edit that post!