hot corn/powder

[Mark Mandel]

Or had the sense expanded idiomatically to include that which is propelled
by the powder, i.e. the bullet or ball?

m a m

On Jan 6, 2008 10:18 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> Yes, I'd seen the powder sense.  But I would suppose -- not ever
> having been personally involved -- that duelists would be far enough
> apart (10 paces and all, meaning 20 from each other) not to be burned
> by hot powder.  (Or was the original speaker wishing that the pistols
> would explode in their two hands, as often enough happened, with
> muskets, at colonial military musters?)
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/6/2008 08:13 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >Maybe not shot, but powder. From OED Online:
> >
> >corn, n.1
> >def. I.1.b:
> >
> >[obs] spec. One of the roundish particles into which gunpowder is formed
> by
> >the corning or granulating process; a grain of corn-powder. Obs. Cf. CORN
> v.
> >1.
> >
> >1595 MARKHAM Sir R. Grinvile Argt., Sir Richard mayntained the fight,
> till
> >he had not one corne of powder left. 1660 W. SECKER Nonsuch Prof. 343 A
> >Train of Powder..takes fire from corn to corn, till at last the Barrel is
> >burst in sunder. 1669 STURMY Mariner's Mag. v. 65 The harder the Corns of
> >Powder are in feeling, by so much the better it is. 1736 CARTE Ormonde I.
> >583 The soldiers..else would not have had a corn of powder..in case of an
> >action.
> >
> >m a m
> >
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