FWD: "Cohen" Crack Corn

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

>From Gerald Cohen
--Barry Popik

[to ads-l, re: Jim crack corn]:
It's most likely "gimcrack corn," where "gimcrack" (as an adjective) means
"tastelessly showy, cheap, gawdy." As a noun it means "a showy but useless
object, a gewgaw." "Corn" (as in "barleycorn") is short for "corn whiskey."
    So the slave is saying that he might have only a cheap liquor with which
to drown his sorrows, but "I don't care."  The loss of his master has saddened
him so much, that the quality of the whiskey is a very secondary matter.

Gerald Cohen