carry corn

English[edit]

carry corn (third-person singular simple present carries corn, present participle carrying corn, simple past and past participle carried corn)

(colloquial, dated) To (be able to) handle success or prosperity in an equable manner.
- 2003, Richard Hoggart, Everyday Language and Everyday Life, page 95:
  'A bad workman blames his tools' is widely taken as an accepted classic truth […] Perhaps French also contains its exasperated partner: 'If you want a thing done well, do it yourself'. One of my relatives had a favourite image for men who failed such tests: 'He can't carry corn'. He wasn't literally expected to, either, not in those parts, but the image fitted well enough. In fact, it seemed to carry a great charge of rejection.
- 2019, Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne, Kate Meredith, Financier:
  That man can't carry corn. He evidently gets a heap too loose tongue if you offer him just a little civility.

John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
William Carr (1828) “Can't carry corn; this expression is applied to one who is too much elated by prosperity.”, in The Dialect of Craven: In the West-Riding of the County of York, page 86