Words on Word History by Phil Baldi

Look Alikes and Sound Alikes, Part 2
By Phil Baldi, Pennsylvania State University

Why is an "ear" of corn called an "ear"? It's easy--an ear on a corn stalk sticks out in pretty much the same way that an ear sticks out from many animals, certainly humans. So the ear of corn is simply a metaphor based on some perceived physical similarity between the two "ear" shapes, right?

Wrong, but if you thought so, you wouldn't be alone. In fact, if you arrived at this conclusion yourself you were being a good "folk-linguist", and what you were doing (incorrectly, in this case) was trying to make an etymological connection without benefit of historical information. Linguists call such efforts "folk-etymologies", because they are founded on popular ideas about relations between words which are based on current similarities, and not on historical facts.

The "ear/ear" pair is especially tricky, because not only do the two words sound identical, there is a highly plausible semantic path that the word might have traveled from "ear of an animal" to "ear of corn" which would explain its meaning as well. "Ear" as an organ of hearing is a well-attested word which is found all over the Indo-European family of languages. It comes from Old English "eare", and is cognate with Latin "auris", Greek "ous", Lithuanian "ausis", all meaning "ear"; it has many other relatives in Indo-European languages, all referring to hearing.

"Ear" as a unit of corn, however, goes back to Old English "ear" meaning "ear of grain", and has relatives such as German Aehre", Dutch "aar", and older forms such as 9th century CE Old Icelandic "ax" and 4th century CE Gothic "ahs". It is even related to Latin "acus" (husk of grain), and has relatives in Greek and other languages. But its relationship with "ear" as an organ of hearing? None.

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