PostPosted: 28 Nov 2011, 09:31
Okay so I was wrong about the American/British thing, I think partly because this is one of the few cases where Australia uses the American version of a word rather than the British. From Wikipedia:
My understanding now is that before they found maize in America, corn would have been used to describe wheat. Therefore it is very suitable for a middle ages game. In German the word for grain is Korn (as far as I can see) and Wikitionary says that the Old English meaning of corn is "a grain or seed". The mission briefings use Old English (thou, thy, etc.) so it makes sense to use the word corn rather than wheat in KaM, it keeps with the middle ages style of language.
Corn is the name used in the United States, Canada, and Australia for the grain maize.
In much of the English-speaking world, the term "corn" is a generic term for cereal crops, such as Barley, Oats, Wheat, Rye