Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia

by Edward Ellis Morris

1827. P. Cunningham, `Two Years in New South Wales,' vol. ii. p. 116:

"The colonial-born, bearing also the name of cornstalks (Indian corn), from the way in which they shoot up."

1834. Geo. Benett, `Wanderings in New South Wales,' vol. i. p. 341:

"The Australian ladies may compete for personal beauty and elegance with any European, although satirized as `Cornstalks,' from the slenderness of their forms."

1849. J. P. Townsend, `Rambles in New South Wales,' p. 68:

"Our host was surrounded by a little army of `cornstalks.'. . . The designation `cornstalk' is given because the young people run up like the stems of the Indian corn."

1869. W. R. Honey, `Madeline Clifton,' Act III. sc. v. p. 30:

"Look you, there stands young cornstalk."

1878. `The Australian,' vol. i. p. 526:

"If these are the heroes that my cornstalk friends worship so ardently, they must indeed be hard up for heroes."