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Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus
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Subject: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 12 Sep 26 - 09:03 AM I've mysteriously become obsessed with these terms, none of which I've actually heard in real life. Does anybody know anything about them personally? (Do not look in books! That's a) unproductive and b) cheating.) |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Robert B. Waltz Date: 12 Sep 26 - 10:50 AM I've heard "kittywumpus" (that would have been my suggested spelling) for something that is completely disorganized. My guess -- I stress that it's a guess -- is that it resembles something a cat has gotten into and played with, causing everything to be disarranged. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 12 Sep 26 - 04:50 PM Where I come from it's related to "kitty-catty-caddy" corner, ie: diagonal. oblique or across. Supposedly from domino game tiles or some such. "Wampus" is chaos. No idea where we got that from. No feline type cats involved though. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST Date: 12 Sep 26 - 08:18 PM Montana hunters encounter a Wampuscat 1914 T.H. Sherrard and Dee Wright encounter a Splintercat 1944 |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 12 Sep 26 - 10:42 PM I know it ... circa 1920-30 from my mother, circa 1920's 30's in North Eastern, Colorado (Weld Co & Fort Collins). In general it was applied to our disheveled boy bedroom ... on being "catawumpus" It could also apply to a baking/cooking dish gone wrong. General version implied, "messed up." Family members in the same household dated back to Civil War. Sincerely, Gargoyle |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Paul Burke Date: 13 Sep 26 - 03:43 AM "Rumpus" I should think. Wiktionary says: Etymology Unknown. First use appears c. 1745. The OED indicates: "perhaps an arbitrary formation". Possibly an alteration of rumbustical or rumbustious (“boisterous, noisy”) + Latin -us (“nominative suffix”). |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 13 Sep 26 - 09:15 AM Many thanks, people. I trust this discussion is not yet over. "Wampus" reminded me of something, but I couldn't say what. GUEST has answered that question. "Catawampus" seems to be decades older than "wampus," but assuming "cat" meant "cat," the "wampus" part needs explanation. In an 1836 Maryland paper, a lovesick character says that heart was kicking up " 'a wow, a wumpus, and a wioting.'" The story was extensively reprinted from Vermont to Kentucky to Wisconsin - in other words, in the majority of the states at the time. What's more, the quotation marks imply that he's citing some presumably earlier source. Regardless of origin, "catawampus" certainly suggests the idea of some kind of cat of some kind raising a rumpus. Keep those comments coming. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 13 Sep 26 - 09:15 AM Of course I meant Paul Burke, not GUEST (whose post was also very helpful). |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 13 Sep 26 - 03:27 PM The Caribbean has catawampus... but no cats except the colonials. Something out of alignment or place. The high point of Britton Hill, Florida is a whopping +100m above sea level, "mountain" lions would just be silly... so we have "panthers" instead. It's the old world Greek version of the North American "Wampus" cat. The preferred prey of the wampus is the "jack-a-lope" &c &c &c. It's two different Creole expressions that sound the same but aren't. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 13 Sep 26 - 04:03 PM PS: Wampus means chaos. Chaos is wild & crazy. A wampus cat is a "wild" cat that can drive one "crazy." Or so the Mainland folklore goes. Cougar, puma &c &c have all been stolen, borrowed & adapted so many times the spellings are meaningless. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 13 Sep 26 - 04:07 PM Phil, we notoriously have jack-a-lopes in Texas. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 Sep 26 - 04:18 PM Lighter, they are notoriously perched atop rustic old buildings along the former main drag through town (from before the interstate highways were built) that often sell concrete bird baths and terracotta yard art. I think there is one on Camp Bowie in Fort Worth. Good information, Phil. It sounds about right. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST Date: 15 Sep 26 - 07:11 AM In a musical vein, mention might be made of Kitty Gray & her Wampus Cats, who recorded in the 1930s, & featuring the great lap steel bluesman Oscar " Buddy " Woods |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 15 Sep 26 - 12:34 PM Thanks, GUEST and Stilly. Interim report (more personal experiences welcome): Based on literally millions of pages in searchable newspaper databases (never before used to search for these words), the oldest is "catawampus," variously spelled. It appeared in the U.S, in the 1830s as an adjective with several meanings. (Partly because, not clearly related to any other word, it could, in theory, mean anything!) There was also "catawampusly" and "catawamptiously." "Catty-wampus" ("slantwise, askew, 'off,' etc.) must have came next, about 1900, as just a variant pronunciation of "catawampus," it must be older in speech than that. "Kitty-wampus": Kansas, 1880s. And "wampus cat" shows up for the first time - in western Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas - around 1905. It soon began turning up elsewhere. More to come. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,paperback Date: 16 Sep 26 - 10:11 AM The Wampus Cat was definitely a thing in Montana. I learnt to truck from a man whose C.B. handle was the West Coast Wampus Cat, and he hailed from circa 1930/40 Montana. The thing is though he pronounced it as womp-ass, you know like whup ass, so I always thought he was talking about a skunk, a womp-ass cat (Pepé Le Pew) |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Sep 26 - 11:07 AM If we're gonna go all research-y and look at printed texts, then the Google Books Ngram Viewer is the way to go. (Note - for full functionality turn off adblocker and uBlock Origin to be able to see the years breakdown at the bottom of the page.) My Search results may not show, if not, go to https://books.google.com/ngrams/ and start over. Entering "catawampus" and pushing the earliest date back to 1750, I get a spread that starts distinctly at 1838 Scrolling through the book citations in the results, in 1840 Crowquill's Fairy Book: Containing Elegant Poetical Versions on page 87 has a telling of Jack the Giant Killer (An illustration has the boy and a giant and the cutline "Jack slays the Yankee Giant, Catawampus.": Slockdollagos turned green and blue, A William Makepeace Thackery book called Book of Snobs in 1885 has a horse of that name in the Chester Cup. Thackery seems to have largely been the source, most of the hits in that search are late 1870s and into the mid 1880s. One from 1849 is Lacy's Acting Editon of Plays, Dramas, Farces and Extravagances, Etc., Etc. Something on page 12 starts "DEANE. Not yet, I tell you! Legs and feet! you're so cussed hungry from that catawampus old company, you are! We'll talk 't over to-night at supper." As I said, Thackery was influential with the huge spike in the mid 1880s then it drops off and there is a more modest spike in the 1940s. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 16 Sep 26 - 04:15 PM Merge time: Folklore: Cattycorner, Cattywampus Folklore: the wampus cat Origins: Cattywampus (Bill Justis) My grandfather was a "Wampus" in the 1920s. No "cat" or "caddy" just Wampus. They competed with the Kiwanis, Elks & Mooseses. The opposite of both caddycorner & caddywhompus is "squared away" (ie: by yer braces & lifts.) The Cajun word for cattywumpus is "bordello." |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 17 Sep 26 - 09:05 AM We should also be aware of the partially synonymous "gollywompus." But first... A far-more-than-representative dragnet of online books and newspapers (and a few offline) reveals that the first known appearance of a member of the catawampus family is as follows. (Oxford missed this quote.) 1830 Georgia Messenger (Macon, Ga.) (May 15) 2: Catawampusly. Obliquely, bias. Chawed up. Having ear, nose and lip bit off. This bit was part of a fictitious "Cracker Dictionary" supposedly reporting on the allegedly barbarous vocabulary of the local, violent poor-white population. In 1830 Macon, Ga., had an official population of 2,635, nearly half of them slaves. The number of people who actually used "catawampusly" at this time is, of course, unknowable. Perhaps against expectations, the "Cracker Dictionary" was soon reprinted in the newspapers of at least seven states - pretty obviously in the spirit of the much later Ripley's Believe It or Not!! These papers were as published as far afield as Greenfield, Mass., and Little Rock, Ark. Why is this important? Because within a very few years the phrase "catawampusly chawed up" was everywhere. "Catawamp(o)usly" (sometimes "catawamptiously") had come to mean "violently or fearociously." And "chawed up" was "beaten soundly or demolished." The phrase persisted till at least 1920 and spread across the English-speaking world as a "typical Americanism." Such fun it was to say “catawampously chawed up” that not even Frederick Douglass could resist. In a speech delivered before the New York Anti-Slavery Society on May 14, 1857, he reportedly elicited appreciative chuckles by asking : “Where [is] the wealth and power that should make us fourteen millions take to our heels before three hundred thousand slave-holders, for fear of being catawampously chawed up?” Stay tuned. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Sep 26 - 10:05 AM That makes sense - the Google Ngram viewer looks at books, it doesn't go into newspaper archives. That 1838 date I found in the graph didn't show up in the results, the closest I could find was 1840. Searching Newspaper archives is more difficult, they're behind subscription paywalls, but a trip to a library with that database might flesh out some of that usage in the first 10 years. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 17 Sep 26 - 11:01 AM Exactly what I've been doing for the last couple of days. There's enough catawampus lore to fill a small book, Don't touch that dial. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 17 Sep 26 - 02:00 PM I *thought* I remembered the term "wumpus": I remember playing the text-based game Hunt the Wumpus on the PDP-11/40 UNIX |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 18 Sep 26 - 01:53 PM Why pronounce the final "-ly" of an adverb? Millions don't bother. So "catawampusly" becomes almost imperceptibly (and, in speech, perhaps immediately) "catawampus," diagonally, obliquely. 1862 Sierra County News (Downieville, Calif.) (Aug. 23) 1: Cut “bias” or “catawampus.” Spell or modify to taste: 1910 Eve. Republican (Columbus, Ind.) (Sept. 5) 6: The road crosses the track “kind of slaunchwise,” as one commissioner expressed it, “catawompus” as another put it. 1996 Anchorage [Ak.] Daily News (Sept. 8) (Comics): I’d just drive cattywhumps across the town square. And "diagonally" easily becomes figuratively "edgewise," at least for some people: 1877 Green-Mountain Freeman (Montpelier, Vt.) (Oct. 10) 1: Nobody can get a word in catawampus like…Well, skewjee like.” More soon. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 18 Sep 26 - 05:42 PM A good source with valid references: https://appalachianhistorian.org/the-wampus-cat-of-appalachia-catawampus-critters-cherokee-masks-and-mountain-memory/ Sincerely, Gargoyle Blessed be ... |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 19 Sep 26 - 10:33 AM One could, with a little poetic license, extend the meaning of "catawmpus" from "diagonally" to "in a roundabout way": 1901 Claflin [Kans.] Clarion (Oct. 24) 1: He didn’t like the method of going “catawompus” over the prairie and through pasture gates to get to town. Or, earlier and far more commonly, "crooked or crookedly; tilted, askew, out of alignment": 1840 Courier (New Orleans) (July 1) 3: Erecting the roughest, most ill-shapen, catawompus and twistified concern for a LOG CABIN, that was ever beheld. 1883 Lippincott’s Monthly (May) 523: Your honor, the witness said cattawampus, but what he meant to signify was that the house was built snatch-wise! 1921 QST (Jan. 26) 26: Screws driven in catawampus, bungled soldering, or untidy wiring. 1956 Sorento [Ill.] News (Aug. 2) 2: If anything was put down catawampus or catty-wampered…it had not been placed in proper alignment. And there's so much more.... |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 19 Sep 26 - 11:28 AM Great article, gargoyle. Fakelore misrepresents history, but sometimes it's fun. On the other hand, according to Google AI: "Standardized tests like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) regularly show that only about 18–20% of youth test at a 'proficient' level in standardized U.S. history. "Curiosity about history is rising, but young people are drawn to human-centric stories, genealogy, and civil rights history." In other words, except maybe for civil rights history, the "big picture" (i.e., "history") is, like, nowhere. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST Date: 19 Sep 26 - 07:53 PM Quote - "According to 1977’s Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, published by HarperCollins, the word “catawampus” in its various forms may have been used for intimidation purposes in the antebellum South. Slaveholders were said to have warned slaves against running away, else they encounter the “catawampus cats” that prowled and yowled in the woods at night. Former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass said an 1857 speech: “There is something cowardly in the idea of disunion. Where is the wealth and power that should make us fourteen millions take to our heels before three hundred thousand slaveholders, for fear of being catawamptiously chawed up?” Douglass uses the word in its adverbial form to mean “utterly defeated,” and hints that this might have been a common idiom employed by slaveholders to enforce submission. The multiple meanings of “catawampus” were compounding into something even more terrifying than the sum of its parts." Here |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 19 Sep 26 - 08:05 PM I don't think the evidence suggests Douglass was hinting at any such thing. He was just using a very popular, very amusing idiom. As for warning against "catawampus cats," if you've read this far, you may have noticed they haven't come up yet. But they're out there. Honestly, any connection between "catawampus" and slavery (except that for a while both existed at the same time) is, shall we say, "unsupported by documentation." |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Stilly River Sage Date: 19 Sep 26 - 08:18 PM It's not unreasonable to assume slave-holders would use threats in the natural world in order to scare slaves into remaining within the confines of the plantation property, but this is the first we've heard about it. Just today I was listening to an interview with Malcolm Gladwell about Virginia slaveowners and their reliance on the Constitution's Second Amendment to keep a militia to control and hunt down slaves. Via New Yorker Magazine an interview by David Remnick. They were so colossally outnumbered that I can see this happening. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 19 Sep 26 - 09:14 PM Those threats would have been much more effective on the enslavers' own children, but we're not told that. Why specify slaves? Maybe because the slave version is more interesting - and maybe because the unknown originator of the story assumed that slaves were, you know, easily scared. How many of us would decide not to escape from slavery after all just because Massa told us there was something weird and scary in the woods? Not many, I think. I mean, there were definitely copperheads and bobcats and maybe bears and guys with bloodhounds, etc. So who'd be put off by some durned catawampus? My usual two cents. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,paperback Date: 19 Sep 26 - 10:59 PM One advantage slaves had over the master and overseers is that evil makes you stupid. I'm sure that the slaves talked shit all day long and their clueless master/overseers never caught on. Heck, they actually probably repeated it thinking that it made them sound clever by mocking the childlike darkies. Reminds me of how people use code language now days to get around AI censors. But alas, undocumented. Sorry professor:) |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Sep 26 - 10:32 AM There is a lot of modern research into code switching, though it does take us another step beyond the discussion of what catawumpus means. It gets more into the application of such words. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 20 Sep 26 - 10:48 AM "Catawampously chawed up" easily suggests the next development: "without restraint; to an extraordinary degree." 1845 Voice of Freedom (Brandon, Vt.) (Nov. 13) 4: The bloody ground on which our fathers catawampously poured out their [blood]. 1858 Council Bluffs [Ia.] Nonpareil (Aug. 14) 2: The Democratic party have had some catawampusly disgraceful meetings. 1868 Troy [O.] Times (Aug. 22) : We all piled out…spontaneously, simultaneously and catawampusly. 1872 Atchison [Kans.] Daily Champion (May 16) 4: They just get right up and catawampusly paw, and sear, and tear things. 1901 Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, Ut.) (Sept. 8) 9: He…said he’d be catawampously Jiggered. And more... |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 20 Sep 26 - 11:09 AM A little later and maybe clearer: 1926 Kingsport [Tenn.] Times (Jan. 28) 4: So home to sup catawamptiously. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 20 Sep 26 - 05:17 PM A phenomenon of a thread. THANK YOU ! Sincerely, Gargoyele |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 20 Sep 26 - 06:43 PM You're very welcome! But the story continues.... |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 22 Sep 26 - 08:16 AM Still on adverbs, we have "Wholly; thoroughly": 1834 Examiner & Herald (Lancaster, Pa.) (Jul. 17) 2: Teetotally ramsquaddled and catawampusly exfluncticated. 1852 Illustrated London News (Aug. 25) 122: In imminent danger…of being “catawampously” annexed by the American Union. 1901 Townsend [Mont.] Star (Nov. 9) 1: I am catawampously tired from riding all day. 1923 Oakland [Calif.] Tribune (Magazine) (May 12) 9: I wuz jus’ naturally catawompously exflustrated. Three countries represented! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 23 Sep 26 - 10:41 AM Diagonally is half of zigzag, so zigzag it becomes: 1884 Harper’s Weekly (Jan. 12) 28: He puts me in mind of pap when he is tight — never wants to keep the road, gits his legs tangled, and goes “catawampus” here and thar across the road, fust one side and then t’other. "Wholly; thoroughly" and "to an extraordinary degree" suggest "with great force," and here you have it: 1849 Fall River [Mass.] Weekly News (May 3) 1: The Governor swore catawampus…”Burn my old…boots!” 1890 Daily Journal (New Bern, N.C.) (Dec. 30) 1: Speaking catawompusly, Harrison has been treed. 2017 Mary Ashby McDonald "Magnet" (N.p.: Xulon) 157: With my left foot in the stirrup I was in mid-air, about to bring my right leg over the saddle, when he reared and jerked away from her. I landed catawampus in the saddle. 2026 Suhasini Raj "A Million Revolutions" (Somerville, Mass.: Candlewick Press) : Landing catawampus on the ground, jamming her shoulder and injuring her leg. No wampus cats or wild catawampusses... yet. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 25 Sep 26 - 08:05 AM Diagonally? Zigzag? Next thing you know it's "upside-down, askew, awry, topsy-turvey, out of kilter, amiss, 'messed up.'" It probably doesn't pay being too finicky, even in distinguishing adverbs from adjectives. And check out the creative spellings and recent spread of "catawampus" to the Antipodes: 1874 N.Y. Observer (Mar. 5) 1: He took the book in his hand upside down.… “Don’t you see you’ve got it catawampus?” 1885 Clarksville [Tenn.] Weekly Chronicle (May 2) 3: The United States marines…knocked the barricades catawampus. 1887 Ft. Worth Gazette (Aug. 6) 2: [The plan] did go kattawampus, a little. 1888 Atlantic Monthly (Dec.) 826: His mind air catawampus jes’ on that idee. 1895 Santa Cruz [Calif.] Surf (Apr. 13) 22: If you think things are kind of catawompus with you, just listen to this. 1907 Adams County Democrat (Hastings, Neb.) (Apr. 19) 7: James and mail carriage was left in a caddy-wumpus, topsy-turvey form. 1938 F. Van Wyck Mason Three Harbors (Phila.: Lippincott) 95: He’d guessed something was caterwampus from the way a twerp of a midshipman swarmed over the Nancy Anne’s rail. 1951 Elko [Nev.] Daily Free Press (May 10) 4: Old Baseball Theory Kicked Caddywampus. 1955 Washington County News (Chatom, Ala.) (June 23) 3: There is something catywampus when 2500 million bucks is tied up earning nothing. 1956 Saturday Evening Post (Feb. 2) 94: The razzle-dazzle…is snafued,…caterwampus. 1975 Vicksburg [Miss.] Post (Oct. 6) 4: His eyes glazed, his hat askew, his mind cattywamps [sic]. 1987 California Court of Appeal…Emde vs. Dress 2: Emde’s position…represents a cattywampus view of his prior position in this matter. 1994 Longview [Wash.] Daily News (Dec. 10) A-10: Blasting was… knocking kitchen cupboards cattywompus. 1995 Rutland [Vt.] Daily Herald (Mar. 26) D1: Alignments get jerked all caddywampus. 2019 Tabitha Bird A Life of Impossible Days (Melbourne: Viking Penguin) 4: Your life is catawampus, Willa. It's been a long time since any "catawampusses" have appeared in a big-city newspaper. And the end is not yet. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 28 Sep 26 - 04:26 PM Out of kilter mentally: confused, distracted, or disturbed. 1862 Vanity Fair (Oct. 18) 185: I make men catawampous, in city and camp. 1884 “Charles E. Craddock” In the Tennessee Mountains (Boston: Houghton) 3: It sets me plumb catawampus ter have ter listen to them blacksmiths…at their ever-lastin’ chink-chank an’ chink-chank. 1885 “Charles E. Craddock” Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains (London: Chatto) 148: She got me plumb catawampus, so ez I didn’t know what I wanted ter do myself. 1897 William E. Barton A Hero in Homespun (Boston: Lamson) 169: I was plumb catawampus…I was plumb ashamed to run…[but] I jes’ got up an’ skedaddled. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 30 Sep 26 - 07:12 AM "Going beyond the ordinary or usual" : 1849 Newark [N.J.] Daily Advertiser (Feb 2.) 2: Catawampus prices here [in California], that’s a fact. 1855 Boston Herald (Sept. 7) 4: He had done pretty good service…in catawampus battles. 1884 Routledge’s Every Boy’s Annual (London: Routledge) 178: That was as catawampus a queer sight as iver I seed. Next time verbs. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 02 Oct 26 - 08:12 AM To overcome thoroughly; knock sideways or out of shape; destroy; wreck. 1843 Washington [D.C.] Union (Apr. 10) 3: [He] laid the [hypnotist] sprawling on the floor….The unfortunate mesmerizer was in evident danger of being teetotally catawampused. 1845 North-Carolinian (Fayetteville, N.C.) (July 19) 4: Just as the great Columbian eagle would finish off and teetotally catawampus a race of chunk-headed turkey-buzzards. 1861 Punch (Nov. 16), p. 196: Then we’re raising a force that …will clean catawompus your cruisers. 1863 New Haven Daily Palladium (Nov. 23) 2: We are gone in, stove up, smashed, played out, used up, cattawampussed—in fact, whipped. 1906 Dialect Notes III 129: The fire just catawampused this boiler. 1963 Louisville [Ky.] Times (May 23) 9: The legislature…is comparatively weak in relation to the governor, a situation that is “now catawumpused.” 1997 Suzann Ledbetter Klondike Fever (N.Y.: Penguin) p. 69: Sor-ree. Didn’t expect to cattawampus the whole shebang. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: Lighter Date: 04 Oct 26 - 09:22 AM To go diagonally or sideways; veer: 1874 Magnolia [N.C.] Monitor (Apr. 8) 1: Ebbery time he see water in de road he mus’ catterwampus roun’ it, sah. 1902 Dialect Notes II 230: Cattering. . . Moving diagonally. Catterwampusin. . . The same as preceding. 1937 Oren Arnold, ed. Roundup (Dallas: Upshaw) 54: Buckin’ hosses of the rodeo…will…buck, pitch, come undone, look at their bellies, skyrocket, blow up, paw the moon, stick their bills in the ground, bedspring, dynamite, haul heck out of its shuck, cattywampus, sunfish, pinwheel, [and] swaller their heads. 1960 Day (New London, Conn.) (Aug. 30) 6: Various combinations of spiraling and catawampusing movements. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawam From: Stilly River Sage Date: 04 Oct 26 - 11:16 AM A future etymologist is going to land in this thread while working on their dissertation and realize they've hit pay dirt! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Wampus Cats, Kitty Wampuses, catawampus From: GUEST,paperback Date: 06 Oct 26 - 01:44 PM The 1920 THE BARNHART TWIN NO. 15 "WAMPUS-KAT" with it's 50' foldable wingspan certainly looked cattywampus. Anyway, a couple of years later there were the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Probably unrelated to Barnhart's flying limousine but an interesting co-incidence. |
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