# "corny" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 30, 2000, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161 "2000-06-30T14:55:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MagicalSilverKey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@MagicalSilverKey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicalSilverKey)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/1 "2000-06-30T14:55:03Z")
How did a vegetable become associated as slang for ridiculous, silly, humor? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/2 "2000-06-30T15:11:26Z")
“Corn-fed yokels.” In vaudeville touring days, “corn” was a synonym for anything liked by small-town hicks. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/3 "2000-06-30T15:12:38Z")
I think “corny” refers to farmers. That is, city-folk think they have a more sophisticated sense of humour thatn their rural brethren. Unsophisticated humour would therefore appeal to farmers, who often raise corn; hence, “corny”. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/4 "2000-06-30T15:12:43Z")
The unsophisticated rural types (rubes) like folksy, simple humor and entertainment. They live on farms. Farms grow corn. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/5 "2000-06-30T15:14:27Z")
Missed it by _one_ minute! ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/6 "2000-06-30T15:15:59Z")
Okay, that’s pretty well settled. Now how about this… a “rube,” I’m pretty certain, is short for “rubin”; what’s a rubin? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/7 "2000-06-30T16:02:37Z")
Damn! I used to know this! Well, if I can’t answer the question, as usual, I’ll just spew random knowledge like a lawn sprinkler. It’s spelled “reuben.” You see it in scores by George M. Cohan, so it goes back at least to the 1890s in New York City slang. Another term Cohan used was “Jay.” (See his “Forty-five Minutes from Broadway,” which mocked the hicks in New Rochelle.) “Jay” led to “jay-walking,” still used, which described the way a corn farmer would try to cross the avenues when he hit the big city. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/8 "2000-06-30T16:13:36Z")
Hah! Got it! “‘Reuben’ had become generic for a countryman by about 1850, and its short form ‘rube’ was in print use by the 1890s. ‘Rube’ in this sense either originated in or was taken up by carnival, circus, and show biz argot. The cry of alarm ‘Hey, Rube!’ was put up by carnival people when a ‘local yokel’ for some reason complained loudly, threatened, or actually picked a fight. In 1891 Tin Pan Alley published ‘Hey, Rube,’ a song by J. Sherrie Matthews and Harry Bulger. One of the best-known occurrences of ‘Reuben’ in popular culture is in the lyrics of George M. Cohan’s song ‘Only 45 Minutes from Broadway.’ New Rochelle, just north of the city, was supposed to be the setting of the musical show of 1906. ‘Oh! what a fine bunch of Reubens, Oh! what a jay atmosphere/ They have whiskers like hay, and imagine Broadway only 45 minutes from here.’” – Irving Lewis Allen, THE CITY IN SLANG: NEW YORK LIFE AND POPULAR SPEECH, Oxford University Press, 1993. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/9 "2000-06-30T16:26:03Z")
DAMN—this is what happens when I have to WORK; Ike gets to these things before I can . . . Curse you, job! ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/10 "2000-07-01T08:58:52Z")
What about hick? Is it because of the sterotype that says country folks hiccup a lot? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/11 "2000-07-01T14:17:24Z")
**hick**'hic\ _n_ [_Hick_, nickname for _Richard_] : an unsophisticated provencial person ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/12 "2000-07-01T14:32:24Z")
New Yawkers believe that “hick” derives from “Hicksville”, now a Long Island suburb of the Greatest City on Earth, but in the 19th Century a backward and rustic farming community, filled with hicks. Sua ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/13 "2000-07-01T14:39:17Z")
Hicksville could mean “Richard’s Village”. ---
**Author:** ![Ruffian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@Ruffian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruffian)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corny/24161/14 "2000-07-01T16:44:51Z")
And here I thought you were talking about my new pet corn snake. 🙂