Catawampus, meaning “askew,” can be spelled at least 15 different ways. It likely derives from the English word cater, meaning “diagonal. ” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Catawampus”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Michael from Weatherford, Texas.
Hi, Michael, how you doing?
I am doing well today.
How’s Texas?
Well, I have a question.
We moved here to Texas about 13 years ago.
A word that I’ve heard being used more frequently here, caddywampus.
I’m not sure of the actual spelling, if it’s C-A-D-D or C-A-T-T, but I’ve heard it used to describe something askew, out of whack, discombobulated. But the word cattywampus, I’ve always wanted to know where it’s come from and how it came into origin. So where you moved from, they didn’t say this word?
Well, I heard it a few times, and that was from California. I heard it usually from the older uncles when we were out working at their places, but it was infrequently used there. But I’ve heard more often here in Texas.
And there are lots of different versions of this word, catawampus or cattywampus.
I think I counted 15 once.
15 different spellings of it.
Yeah, with Ks and Cs and Ds and all different kinds of vowels in there.
And it seems like it goes back to an English word, a dialectal word cater, which means diagonal and may come from French catch, meaning four.
Yeah, meaning four, because you have four corners and you have diagonal from one corner to the other.
Which would make it related to kitty corner, right?
Or catty corner.
Yeah, because cattywampus and kitty corner are part of a larger family.
And I think we’ve done variants on words meaning askew probably a half dozen times on the show.
And I bet the whole list of words in American and British English that mean askew, it’s probably nearing on 60 or 70.
It’s a lot of words.
There’s a lot of askewity in life, you know?
A lot of things are askew.
But I’m kind of surprised that you didn’t hear it more often in California because it’s not particularly southern, is it, Martha?
It’s pretty much all over except, I think, for New England.
Oh, yeah.
There are a lot of words like it, catabias, catafogus, catawislin, and they all have to do with being askew or diagonal.
It’s interesting.
It takes both of those meanings.
Michael, thank you so much for calling.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Michael had a very good voice, by the way.
He did.
He should be in radio.
Yeah, he should be.
Maybe he is.
Farm life, country life, the Western life.
I don’t get much of that day-to-day here in California.
I know it exists, but it’s out in the valleys, right?
Yes.
We’d like to hear more, wouldn’t we?
Yeah, we would.
As a matter of fact, I still feel a little city-fied.
Bring some country to us.
Bring us your country words, your Western words.
Like prairie strawberries.
What’s that?
Beans.
Beans.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
