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Comment by interestica | Hacker News Reader

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> 1215 Magna Carta requires “one measure” of wine, corn and cloth throughout the realm; and similarly for weights.

Corn is native to North America/Mexico. Was the term more general?

In English 'corn' is just a general term for any cereal grain or similar (e.g. barleycorn, peppercorn, even 'corned' beef in reference to the appearance of salt). In the US it got associated particularly with maize for whatever reason.

> The word "corn" outside the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, its meaning understood to vary geographically to refer to the local staple.[33][34] In the United States,[33] Canada,[35] Australia, and New Zealand,[36] corn primarily means maize; this usage started as a shortening of "Indian corn".[33] "Indian corn" primarily means maize (the staple grain of indigenous Americans), but can refer more specifically to multicolored "flint corn" used for decoration.[37]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize#Names

In Britain, 'corn' is a generic word for any cereal grain.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-British-call-wheat-corn

Corn is synonymous with "grain" and in this context means whatever food crop is grown locally. In many parts of America this is maize, formerly known as "Indian corn".

And corn syrup, what is it made of?

it's syrup, so probably made of sugar.. and production of it seems centered in the US, where as previously stated the local grain is corn, so i'd guess it's probably sugar made from corn

That's an American term, so it's made from maize.

In Europe, including Britain, it's called glucose syrup. HFCS is called isoglucose, but isn't much used.

People.

This didn't last though - with taxation fixed by the elected governments various kings raised taxes by reducing the size of the gallon - this left the wine gallon (the one the US adopted) smaller than other gallons, in the 1800s the UK standardised back to the existing single imperial gallon which is why the US gallon is different from everywhere else (that whole "a pint's a pound the world around" aphorism is bogus bullshit, only true in the US)

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