# How could the Romans use corn? It's American! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 22, 2009, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964 "2009-04-22T12:03:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/21 "2009-04-27T13:27:08Z")
> [@Yssy](#): > > Interestingly, while I was googling to find out why people believed the carvings were of American Maize, I found this excellent picture (please excuse the site!) > [Account Suspended](http://www.rosslynhoax.com/Press_Reports.htm) > > More food for thought? > Yssy Oh, THAT’s the stuff? Hmm. Honestly, I think it’s just generic leaf. Reminds me of [broadleaf plantain](http://www.agroatlas.ru/en/content/weeds/Plantago_media/)as much as anything, and that stuff’s all over the UK (and, like, \*everywhere \*else White Man has ever stepped!) ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/22 "2009-04-27T14:22:30Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Could the carvings have been done after the building was built? That is, could the walls have gone up between '46 and '84 and the carvers then called in to make it look pretty over the next 10 years? That’s a serious possibility. Robert Cooper has argued that all the carvings were added later and that, as this would not have been done until the building was roofed, all that can be said is that they could only have been added at some unknown date after 1484. _The Rosslyn Hoax?_ (2006), pp. 154-5, 164-5. [QUOTE=Yssy] …I found this excellent picture (please excuse the site!) > **[Account Suspended](http://www.rosslynhoax.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi)** [/QUOTE] Actually, Cooper’s _The Rosslyn Hoax?_ is the most important book on Rosslyn Chapel published in recent years. He debunks at great length much of the nonsense that so badly needed debunking and, unlike most writers on the subject, he knows his way around the archival sources. Although perhaps not one for the casual reader. ---
**Author:** ![Yssy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/bbce88/32.png) [@Yssy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yssy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/23 "2009-04-30T12:53:37Z")
> [@APB](#): > > That’s a serious possibility. Robert Cooper has argued that all the carvings were added later and that, as this would not have been done until the building was roofed, all that can be said is that they could only have been added at some unknown date after 1484. _The Rosslyn Hoax?_ (2006), pp. 154-5, 164-5. > > Actually, Cooper’s _The Rosslyn Hoax?_ is the most important book on Rosslyn Chapel published in recent years. He debunks at great length much of the nonsense that so badly needed debunking and, unlike most writers on the subject, he knows his way around the archival sources. Although perhaps not one for the casual reader. thanks for info, it sounds an interesting read. However I’m not sure I could get past all FreeMasonary stuff to get to the interesting bits. Yssy ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/24 "2009-04-30T15:49:02Z")
\*\*How could the Romans use corn? It’s American! \*\* You think that’s odd, how come the two iconic Italian foods are pasta and marinara (tomato sauce)? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/25 "2009-04-30T21:39:18Z")
There is some question about the age of pasta in Europe. As to the tomatoes – some things just move quickly. Look at the potato in Ireland. Or the turkey – by Shakespeare’s time, only a hundred years after Columbus, the English thought it had “always” been in the Old World. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/26 "2009-05-01T15:08:10Z")
For a full blown rant on the folly of changing “corn” in works being read or shown in the States, see Lindsey Davis’ - the author of the brilliant Falco stories set in Vespasian’s Rome - [web-site](http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/rants.htm#corn). Having dealt with “corn” she goes on to talk in general about altering books for the American market: > [@](#): > > … > > But the underlying assumption that British books have to be modified for the American market needs to be rethought. It’s loathsome. Nobody would ask for this to be done in reverse. Britons accept faucets and such, and tackle US books written in a strong argot because that’s an essential part of their flavour. (Come to that, we accept Ian Rankin and Christopher Brookmyre being indelibly Scottish, even impenetrably Scottish…) > > So, what I am being asked to do if I change words or phrases for American editions is to pretend I am not English and to obliterate my ‘voice’ - yes, that great ideal, beloved of US writing classes. I don’t believe you would dare to expect this of a Spanish or French author, or a Latin American or Japanese author. Nor do I believe that an American author writing about a distinct region, using some of the patois of a native people or the street talk of a particular city, would - or even could - be asked to modify their vocabulary for other Americans. It would be denying cultural identity, absolutely politically incorrect. So is it right that an anaemic Mid-Atlantic tone is regularly applied to British books - and that this is accepted, even by British authors, as a proper thing to do? > > … ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/27 "2009-05-01T20:27:46Z")
**John W. Kennedy** said: > [@](#): > > Or the turkey – by Shakespeare’s time, only a hundred years after Columbus, the English thought it had “always” been in the Old World. Turkeys are native in America? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2009, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/28 "2009-05-02T03:02:30Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > **John W. Kennedy** said: > Turkeys are native in America? I saw what you did there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![steviemutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@steviemutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steviemutton)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2009, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/29 "2009-05-02T07:59:44Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > For a full blown rant on the folly of changing “corn” in works being read or shown in the States, see Lindsey Davis’ - the author of the brilliant Falco stories set in Vespasian’s Rome - [web-site](http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/rants.htm#corn). > > Having dealt with “corn” she goes on to talk in general about altering books for the American market: God, I hate that, especially since here in Aus we sometimes get the Americanised versions and even if we don’t, fandom is majority American. The US edition of the most recent Artemis Fowl book (character and author both Irish, and proudly so) has Artemis make an emotional breakthrough and start calling his mother ‘mom’, which is ‘mum’ in the UK edition. Mind you, in a previous book there is a reference to her as Artemis’s ‘mam’, so possibly even the UK edition of the later book was altered for dialect. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/30 "2009-05-04T20:25:04Z")
**Irishman** said: > [@](#): > > Turkeys are native in America? \*\*DSYoungEsq \*\* said: > [@](#): > > I saw what you did there. You mean made a mistake? DOH! I left out the word “not”. ---
**Author:** ![Yssy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/bbce88/32.png) [@Yssy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yssy)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964/31 "2009-05-05T11:52:54Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > For a full blown rant on the folly of changing “corn” in works being read or shown in the States, see Lindsey Davis’ - the author of the brilliant Falco stories set in Vespasian’s Rome - [web-site](http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/rants.htm#corn). > > Having dealt with “corn” she goes on to talk in general about altering books for the American market: Unforgiveably Rankine’s “Fleshmarket Close” became “Fleshmarket Alley” and Rankine’s voice is lost… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-romans-use-corn-its-american/493964.md?page=1)