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Comment by addaon | Hacker News Reader

From the article: 'In ancient and in medieval times, acorns were also occasionally employed as food for man, in cases of emergency: “when there is scarcity of corn”, Pliny noted in the Naturalis Historia'...

Does anyone know if this quote is correct, or how it might be better rendered? Isn't corn (maize) a new world food that Pliny would be unfamiliar of, let alone consider a staple?

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In England you'll find references to 'the corn laws' and 'the corn exchange'. Corn meant any kind of grain. I believe it still does in some places, and what is called 'Corn' in the New World is called 'Maize' everywhere else.

More on this subject from actual historians: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2tn77o/what_...

Or some variation - Mais in German

Just by the way, "corn" in british english is a generic term meaning "cereal crop" -- usually "wheat". They'd refer to what we call "corn" as "maize".

Ah... I thought I was familiar with most Britishisms that would lead to this level of confusion, but definitely was not familiar with this one! That explains it, thanks.

To further my confusion on this point, I notice that the Wikipedia article on Pliny's Naturalis Historia mentions: 'Some technical advances he discusses are the only sources for those inventions, such as hushing in mining technology or the use of water mills for crushing or grinding corn.'

Corn is any cereal grain used for food, e.g. wheat, rye or even (in parts of Scotland) oats, not specifically maize (aka corn on the cob).

Thanks to both you and coddingtonbear for the clarification. I updated the English and Simple English Wikipedia pages to refer to "grain" instead of "corn."

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