1063. Why is it called "corned beef" when there’s no corn involved? We look at how the word "corn" evolved to mean different things over time. Then, we look at the role of accent marks in English — why some words keep them, why others lose them, and what they tell us about language.
1063. Why is it called "corned beef" when there’s no corn involved? We look at how the word "corn" evolved to mean different things over time. Then, we look at the role of accent marks in English — why some words keep them, why others lose them, and what they tell us about language.
The "corn" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
The "diacritic" segment was written by Karen Lunde, a former Quick & Dirty Tips editor and digital pioneer who's been spinning words into gold since before cat videos ruled the internet. She created one of the first online writing workshops, and she's published thousands of articles on the art of writing. These days, she leads personal narrative writing retreats and helps writers find their voice. Visit her at ChanterelleStoryStudio.com.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, we're going to talk about why we refer to food as "corned," as in "corned beef," and then we'll talk about why some words in English have accent marks.
by Valerie Fridland
From the candy corn on Halloween to the dried corn at Thanksgiving and even the corned beef on St. Paddy’s Day, corn seems to be everywhere during American holiday celebrations. So, what’s up with all this corniness?
It turns out that many of these corn-themed items come from an earlier meaning of the word “corn” itself. You see, the word entered Old English from its Germanic ancestor as the word “korn,” spelled with a K. For most of English’s history, “korn” was used to refer to any hard seed particle, not just that of maize. This is why English has the word “peppercorn,” for example. Most often, though, it referred to whatever grain was the dominant one in an area. So, for instance, rye, barley, wheat, or oats were common “korn” in Europe.
And although it may seem far afield from “grain” as we call these cereal seeds today, both “korn” and “grain” actually come from the same root, which was “gre-no” (G-R-E-N-O). This ancient word for “grain or seeds” existed in a now extinct precursor language that is thought to have given birth to the Germanic and Italic lines of languages several thousand years ago.
In the resulting Germanic branch from which English descended, sound changes made it into Old English’s “korn” while in the Italic derived Latin, it became “granum.” “Granum” then developed into the word “grain” as a branch of Latin turned into French. From French, it was borrowed into English around the 14th century, giving English both “grain” and “korn.”
Of course, the question now is how a word which can still be used generically to refer to any local grain in Britain became so much more specific in its use in the United States. Well, the American habit of using the word “corn” to only refer to the yellow cobbed starchy vegetable otherwise known as maize goes all the way back to the early settlers in New England and Virginia.
After arriving in the New World, the early colonists often found themselves with dwindling food supplies and little knowledge of what to grow and how to grow it. Had indigenous peoples such as the Wampanoag and the Powhatan not provided maize and agricultural know-how, the settlers in New England and Virginia might have met a much more dire fate.
After an abundant harvest in the fall of 1621, made possible by the help of these Native Americans, the Pilgrims celebrated with a three-day harvest festival now considered to be symbolically the first Thanksgiving. The feasting most certainly included wild fowl and a mush made of maize, and this is how dried ears of corn took on an association with both autumn and abundance. It's also why turkey and cornbread stuffing have starring roles on Thanksgiving.
As for its name, since it was a dominant local grain, “maize,” which comes from the Arawakan word, “mahiz” (M-A-H-I-Z) was called “Indian corn” by the colonists. After a while, the name stuck, minus the “Indian,” and saying “corn” to refer exclusively to maize became as American as handprint turkeys on Thanksgiving.
Candy corn didn’t enter the picture until much later, when in the late 1800s, a candy company employee developed a sweet treat in the shape of a corn grain at a time when agricultural-inspired candy shapes were popular. For example, companies also made candies in the shape of pumpkins, carrots, watermelons, bananas, and even pickles.
Candy corn was originally called “chicken feed,” because dried corn was the mainstay of chickens’ diets. It wasn’t until the 1900s that “candy corn” became its new moniker. And by the 1950s, candy corn had become heavily favored as a candy associated with Halloween.
Finally, in a throwback to the older meaning of “corn,” corned beef is so named because it refers to a style of curing meat with grains of salt that are called salt corns. This was a common way of preserving meat among Jewish people in Eastern Europe, and since Irish immigrants to the U.S., particularly those in New York, bought much of their beef from kosher butchers, corned beef became a popular Irish splurge for celebrations in the late 1800s. Immigrants paired the meat with one of the most affordable vegetables at the time, giving us the corned beef and cabbage combination we now associate with St. Patrick's Day.
That segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
by Karen Lunde
Have you ever looked at the word "naïveté" and wondered why we have little dots and accents hanging out above some of the letters? Well if so, you're not alone! Julia Ganis asked this exact question on Bluesky.
Those little extras above (or sometimes below) letters are called diacritical marks, or diacritics for short. You can think of them as the accessories of the alphabet world — they're not part of the basic letter, but they add a little something extra to tell us how to pronounce or understand a word.
In English, we usually prefer our letters plain and unadorned. But every now and then, we dress up our words with fancy marks.
So, let's talk about why.
English is famous for being a language that loves to borrow words from other languages. But although French, Spanish, and many other languages regularly use accent marks, English often gives borrowed words a makeover by removing their diacritical marks.
But some words stubbornly refuse to give up their accent marks. In English texts, words like "naïve," "résumé," and "fiancée" often show up with their original accents intact. It's like these words have convinced English to let them keep their distinctive look. And there are actually some pretty good reasons that certain words get to keep their diacritical bling!
Sometimes those marks help us avoid pronunciation chaos. Take "naïveté" — it has two dots over the letter "i" (called a diaeresis) that tell us to pronounce the "i" and "v" as separate sounds, not as one smooshed-together sound. Without them, we might say something that sounds more like "nave-tay" instead of "nah-eev-tay."
Some accent marks help us distinguish between words that would otherwise look identical. Think about "exposé" (a revealing report) versus "expose" (to uncover something). "Exposé" has an accent mark over the final "e" to help us tell the words apart.
And finally, some words keep their accents out of respect for their cultural heritage. These little marks remind us that English is a language that's been shaped by lots of other languages and cultures over the centuries.
So, we already talked about the diaeresis — those two dots above the "i" in "naïveté." Let's meet some other common diacritics you'll run into.
Of course, we couldn't talk about diacritics without mentioning one famously obsessed publication. "The New Yorker" stands out in the publishing world for its commitment to the diaeresis — those two dots that appear over the second vowel in words like "coöperate" and "reëlect." Most publications dropped this practice decades ago, but "The New Yorker" holds firm to this tradition, which dates all the way back to the publication's founding in 1925.
The magazine maintains that the diaeresis serves an important purpose: it tells readers to pronounce both vowels separately rather than running them together. Basically, they believe it prevents us from reading the word "cooperate" as "COOP-er-ate."
But in modern English, we usually understand these pronunciations without needing the extra marks. Still, at least you'll know you're probably reading "The New Yorker" whenever you see one! It's almost part of the brand at this point.
Interestingly, you might actually see diacritics more often in the digital age. These days, smartphones and computers make it easier to type special characters, so a lot of writers opt to include them to preserve the original spellings of some words.
But when it comes to style guides, many of them take a flexible approach. The Associated Press Stylebook recommends including accent marks on proper names (like "Peña") but makes them optional for common words like "cafe" or "resume." The Chicago Manual of Style similarly allows writers to choose whether to use or drop diacritics in most cases.
If you find yourself deciding whether to use diacritical marks in your writing, keep these next guidelines in mind:
Essential diacritics help distinguish between words with different meanings. The accents in "résumé" — the thing you send to potential employers — helps differentiate it from "resume" — to continue. (Even so, you'll see people use résumé without the diacritics if the context is clear.)
Next, names should always retain their original diacritics. When you're writing about a person named González — with an accent over the "a" — or a weather pattern like El Niño — with a tilde over the second "n," keeping these marks shows respect for linguistic and cultural identity.
Next, if you're following a specific style guide, be sure to check what it says.
And finally, when in doubt, consistency matters more than strict rules. Choose one approach and stick with it.
So, back to Julia's original question about "naïveté": these marks persist because they serve multiple purposes. They guide pronunciation, preserve meaning, and maintain connections to the words' origins.
Either way, the evolution of English shows us language rules aren't set in stone. They shift and adapt as our communication needs change.
That segment was written by Karen Lunde, a former Quick & Dirty Tips editor and digital pioneer who's been spinning words into gold since before cat videos ruled the internet. She created one of the first online writing workshops, and she's published thousands of articles on the art of writing. These days, she leads personal narrative writing retreats and helps writers find their voice. Visit her at ChanterelleStoryStudio.com.
And finally, I have a familect story from Randy.
Good afternoon, Mignon.
This is Randy from Northern California, and this is a familect story.
I've been trying to trace this down for over 50 years.
I grew up in the Midwest around the Detroit area, and when I was young, we had a Volkswagen Bug or Beetle, and the question is about a part of that Beetle.
So there is an area behind the back seat right below the window that we used to call the cubby hole. And when we were small, we would ride back in there.
And as I've gone around the years and asked every Volkswagen owner I've known what they call that area; nobody has a good answer. And when I say "the cubby hole," everybody looks at me like they don't know what I'm talking about.
So I'm wondering, has anybody else ever heard of that area behind the rear seat of a Volkswagen called "the cubby hole"?
Thanks. Great listening to you. Have a great day. Bye.
Well, that's an interesting one, Randy. Let's see what people say.
If you've heard "cubby hole" or any other name for that space in a Volkswagen Bug or Beetle, please call the voicemail line or leave a voice message on WhatsApp to let us know. I'll report back if I have anything, and thanks for the call, Randy.
And that's the same line to call if you want to share your familect. The number is 83-321-4-GIRL, and I have that and the link to WhatsApp in the show notes.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Nat Hoopes in Marketing; Dan Feierabend in audio; Brannan Goetschius, director of podcasts; Holly Hutchings in digital operations; Morgan Christianson in advertising; and Davian Tomlin in marketing, who is eagerly waiting for their roommate to get back from a trip so they can watch School Spirits season 2 together.
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip-a-day book "The Grammar Daily." That's all. Thanks for listening.
The following references for the "corn" segment did not appear in the podcast but are included here for completeness.
Dickens, L. (2022, Oct 26). "It's corn! The history of an adored (and reviled) Halloween candy." CAES Newsire. University of Georgia cooperative extension.
Esposito, S. (2013, Mar 15). "Is Corned Beef Really Irish? The rise and fall and rise of the traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal." Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/is-corned-beef-really-irish-2839144 (accessed March 7, 2025)
“Grain.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grain (accessed November 21, 2024)
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “corn (n.1),” June 2024
Rothsetin, J. (2024, Jul 1). "America's Sweet Beginnings: The History of Candy in the USA." Redstone Foods Inc. website. https://redstonefoods.com/candy-soda-blog/history-of-candy-in-the-usa (accessed March 7, 2025)
Sutherland, K. (2005, Apr 26). "History of Candy: Sweet Learning." Capper's Farmer website. https://www.cappersfarmer.com/food-and-entertaining/history-of-candy-sweet-learning/ (accessed March 7, 2025)
Trinklein, David. (2023, Nov 16). "Corn: Oft-overlooked Thanksgiving tradition." University of Missouri Integrated Pest Management. https://ipm.missouri.edu/meg/2023/11/corn-DT/ (accessed November 21, 2024)
Wordsworth, D. (2022, Sep 10). "The cereal ambiguity of ‘corn.’" The Spectator.