A wide variety of spellings exist for the English usage of the term, e.g., tshotshke, tshatshke, tchachke, tchotchka, tchatchka, chachke, tsotchke, chotski, or chochke; the standard Yiddish transliteration is tsatske or tshatshke. In Israeli Hebrew it is often spelled ×¦××¦×§×¢, [Ëtsats.ke], with a tsade instead of teth-shin, as in Yiddish.
At first, corn was only a garden curiosity in Europe, but it soon began to be recognized as a valuable food crop. Within a few years, it spread throughout France, Italy, and all of southeastern Europe and northern Africa.
Waxy corn (maize) was found in China in 1909. As this plant showed many peculiar traits, the American breeders long used it as a genetic marker to tag the existence of hidden genes in other maize breeding programs.