I don’t know where you got the idea that “cattywhompus” means the same as “cattycorner”; everybody knows cattywhompus means anything that has been turned askew, usually 180 degrees from the expected orientation, as in “The bedcovers were all cattywhompus after she shellaqued my cane.”
TT
“Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it.” --Andre Gide
I surrender. Yes, I am an idiot. I am finding more and more instances of kitty-corner, but they do say that it is a variant of catercorner. I believe that people’s slurring of t’s into d’s, along with my deduction as to how kids take corner were to blame, along with growing up in Wisconsin.
This is just another one of the many phrases that rubes has totally screwed up.
My apologies to the millions.
sincerely,
rubes
Yer all mistaken…its cornerways. Thats how we say it 'round here.
canthearya-cornered?
“Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I’m worried about the difference between wrong and fun.”
~P.J. O’Rourke~
'belli, where you from where that is the phrase. Can’t say I’ve ever heard that one.
Ooooh! Eureka Springs! Didja see any ghosts?
–
Teeming Millions: http://fathom.org/teemingmillions
“Meat flaps, yellow!” - DrainBead, naked co-ed Twister chat
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
You guys actually say that?
I just use directionals (the NW corner, for example).
Silly Midwesterner,
Chris
“…all the prettiest girls live in Des Moines…”
–Jack Kerouac, On the Road
I’m from NY. And, while I know it’s catercorner, we always say cattycorner. I have heard, on occasion, kittycorner, but that’s rare.
There’s no snooze alarm on a hungry cat. =^…^=
Uh, FWIW and IMHO with back up I’m going to post the following:
catercornered also catercorner or cattycornered. Adj. Diagonal. Adv. Diagonally. (Obs. Cater, four at dice) (Lat. Quattuor.)
Sorry to say but this word makes no sense. The term was “absorbed” into our colloquial English after the first part, “quatre”, four, was taken in meaning the four on the dice or cards. Around about 1600 or so the pronunciation was anglicized to sound like “cater” and then like “catta” so that “cattycornered” is its commonest pronunciation. Also well used is “kitty-cornered”. Any feline allusion is rare, now, but it still finds this pronunciation.
If anything, it should mean “four corners” but we have taken it, absorbed it into English, and “made” it mean diagonal. Gee, leave it to us Americans to make something our own. We rock!
Best!
Byz
I don’t say it either, Chris. I get enough bumpkin jokes from friends in Chicago and St. Louis that I don’t need any help from using sayings like that.
“Bodie, I noticed you stopped stuttering.”
“I’ve been giving myself shock treatments.”
“Up the voltage.”
-Real Genius
I say kitty-corner, and never thought it could be a problem. Of course I never thought about where it came from, either. Just one of those weird things people say, I guess. I figure if people from “the city” have a problem with it, they just don’t know how to talk.
So there.
OpalCat:
No, I didn’t even realize that Eureka Springs was a haunted town. Is there a white lady wandering the corridors of the Crescent Hotel? If so, I would think that the Christ of the Ozarks would scare her right off.
Quand les talons claquent, l’esprit se vide.
Maréchal Lyautey