WotD: ear of corn; corncob

[muckefuck]

1. der Maiskolben
2. de maïskolf
3. la mazorca de maíz, la panoja, el elote; el olote
4. la panotxa, la panolla
5. l'épi de maïs; la rafle de maïs
6. y dywysen india-corn; y cobyn (india-corn)
7. an dias arbhair (Indiaigh)
8. kolba kukurydzy
9. 옥수수대, 옥수수 알 ; 옥수수자루, 호박벌
10. 玉米條 yùmǐtiáo, 玉米棒子 yùmǐtiáobàngzi; 玉米芯 yùmǐxīn

Notes: This is a messier table than usual because, as I was compiling it, I realised that not all languages distinguish consistently between the ear (i.e. the cob with the grains still attached) and the cob. For that matter, English doesn't; I'm as likely to hear (or say) "I had three cobs of corn" as "I had three ears".

After a long delay due to the inclemently cool growing season, the first Mirai corn is making it to market. I manfully limited myself to one ear last night; the truth is I could've eaten my way through our entire stock, cooked or not. SO GOOD.

Comments

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

I've never heard "cob" used to refer to what you eat, as opposed to what's left over. "I had three cobs of corn" sounds very wrong to my ear.

"I had three cobs of corn"

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

I think it would be "I ate three ears of corn on the cob".

Corn on the cob is indeed labeled as mazorca de maíz here in España. I bought some last week to go with beef steak on the Weber.

Chuck

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

I have to echo the sentiments above. Where are you hearing "three cobs of corn"? It sounds pretty unnatural unless you want to refer to something with no corn on it, and even then, it kind of has a "Babelfish" quality to it.

There's also really no word to specifically just refer to a "cob" in Japanese -- 玉蜀黍1本, toumoroushi ippon, "1 cylindrical thing of corn." תִּירָס, tiras, in Hebrew is both corn in general and an ear of corn.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Google "I ate one/two/three cobs of corn" and you'll find examples from people who--I can only assume based on their style--are native speakers of English. It isn't the most turn of phrase, but neither is it something I made up.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

I never said you did, but so far there are four people here spread throughout the country. who have never heard it used that way, so it has to be relatively rare. :: laugh ::

[theunixgeek.livejournal.com]

How do you come up with these words of the day? This seems like an interesting way to build vocabulary.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

From time to time, I hear a word and ask myself, How do you say that in X? (where X is any of the languages I've actively studied). If I can't think of a translation in more than half the languages on the list above and it seems like a useful word--or, at the very least--and interesting word to compare cross-linguistically, I'll make one of these posts.