Common Lexeme

majs

Keywords: agriculture, food, crime, architecture

Pronunciation (IPA): majs 
Part of Speech: term noun verb 
Class: skurun 
Forms: majs, majsys, majsca, majska, majskas 
Glosses: corn, maize, maze, bamboozle, scam, scammy, scammer, con, con artist, rube, sucker, gullible 

Description:

The term 'majs' entered Common in the late early period and had the original sense of the grain maize, what North American English speakers call 'corn'. It appears to have entered the language a number of times from internal vocabulary and settled on the majs spelling quite early. The sense of 'maze' seems to have entered the language not long after, initially as some kind of word play from English. The sense conning someone, in the American sense of perpetuating an elaborate fraud or scam on someone, shows up in late middle period slang and became firmly established in the standard in the early modern period. 

If it weren't for the fact that the verbal sense of the word is universality something like defrauding through elaborate trickery, it would make sense to divide majs into two lexemes. However, we are electing to treat majs as a single lexeme due to this common verbal sense. 

Interestingly, the mental image people have when they use majs in the con sense seems to be of corn, based on popular artistic imagery, so New World Order people just seem to view corn as an especially untrustworthy vegetable for some reason 

Noun: 

In a noun context, majs can have the senses of maize the grain or of a maze. The sense of a trick doesn't seem to show up in a noun sense except in the derived forms majsca, con artist, and majska, gull, rube or sucker.

Modifier: 

The modifier form 'majsys' has the sense of 'scammy', calling something majsys is saying that you think someone is pulling a scam. The form 'majskas' means 'gullible'.

Majsys can also have the senses of 'having a confusing floorplan' or 'tasting like corn'.

Verb:

In a verb context, 'majs' is a transitive skurun verb meaning to con or scam someone, taking an ergative con artist and an absolutive sucker.

Related Lexemes

Related Topics

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