This does not purport to be a definitive essay on the English language. It is simply an interim report on the current usage of the language as well as one reference to a word that has ancient connections.
These days I am obliged to hold onto a sighted person leading me about. This is not an efficient arrangement but I must say that it gets the job done. What is there to say beyond that? Leading me here and there, it seems to me that when there is a turn to the right or the left, people will say, “A right hand turn” or “A left hand turn” coming up. May I suggest that in that construction, the use of the word “hand” is superfluous. I have no objection to being told about the right hand or the left hand but the use of the word hand is not really necessary.
The same goes for “falling down.” My internist has warned me of the perils of “falling down.” The internist is a very likable fellow and I am not inclined to ask him whether I could “fall up.” The word “down” seems a bit superfluous.
Now there is a version of the English language that is often employed by those who have Irish roots. The word is “me.” In this construction, some Irishmen say, “I got me a wife” or “I got me a job.” Everybody knows that the proper construction of the language is “I got I a job.” Miss Maxwell, my eighth grade teacher, would never have condoned such a horrendous mistake. If I understand the English language, “me” is superfluous. But I certainly do not object to its being used.
On the subject of Irishmen, I have been struck by the number of Irish people who pronounce the word “ask” as “ax”. Why this is so is beyond my comprehension. When such a person proposes to his girl, for example, do you think that he “axed” her to marry him?
In a previous essay, I mentioned the new construction and the phrase “ramped up.” I am at a loss to tell you what “ramped” means. Now I find that not only when there is an increase in the ramps, there is also a decrease which is expressed in the phrase “ramped down”. And so we have both “ramped up” and “ramped down.” But mark me as still baffled by what “ramped” means.
There is an ancient English word pronounced “talk-ed.” In modern language, we don’t worry about the “ed” part of it. The same might be said for “walk-ed.” We simply say talked and walked and leave these pronunciations to folk singers such as my friend Burl Ives.
This morning, I heard a financial news broadcast where the term, “seize up” was used. When an engine seizes, it stops running. I would suggest that the “up” in that reference is also superfluous.
Before we get to the main subject of this essay, there are three or four other matters of interest. When it is necessary for a physician to perform an operation, it is now called “a procedure.” A procedure and an operation hurt equally, so I do not believe the substitute, “a procedure,” is all that helpful.
Then there are religious matters where the “Holy Spirit” has replaced the term of “Holy Ghost”. From my standpoint, I have always regarded the Holy Ghost as the most spirited member of the Christian deities.
Then in recent days, I find that the political term of “liberal” has morphed into “progressive”. I suspect that Republicans dislike progressive as much as they dislike liberal.
Now we arrive at the main meat of this essay which is the word “cattywampus.” My father, the original Ezra, was a religious man. To the best of my memory I cannot ever remember him cursing, except for using the word “bloody.” That is not really a curse word. It is used often in Irish and English speech.
In addition to “bloody,” my father would also refer to something as being “cattywampus.” Some current dictionaries do not list that word. Among the people of my parents’ generation, cattywampus was an ordinary term, frequently used. It is still in use in the southern part of this country and my wife tells me that even in western Pennsylvania that word was well known. It means askew or awry. But in the case of my father, he would also use it to describe a nut that was replaced on a lug if it became cross-threaded.
In my father’s parlance, if wood were cut at an angle, it would be called a cattywampous cut. That means exactly what it says, that the piece of wood to be cut was cut across at an angle. Apparently that usage was fairly common.
My friend Tom Scanlon also said that cattywampus meant that things were not going very well. His roots are in Tennessee so it looks like the word is known from at least Tennessee through Pennsylvania and Missouri.
Well, that is my English lesson for today. Miss Maxwell, the one with the high-buttoned shoes, would be pleased to know that one of her students today is carrying on the tradition of speaking English in an understandable fashion.
As I have reported earlier in more than one essay, my father and I had never exchanged a sharp word with each other. On the other hand, he and I were basically strangers. He has been gone now more than 52 years and I find myself recalling things that he did and things that he said. Cattywampus is a word that he used fairly often. When the nuts became cross-threaded, and there was a board to be cut at an angle, he would revive that ancient word of cattywampus. I realize that it is not a word that is employed often by graduates of Harvard or Yale law school. But, again, it gets the job done. And, more than anything else, it tends to remind me of Ezreee, as he called himself. My father was a good man and I should have paid much more attention to him while he was alive.
But in the end Miss Maxwell, who told us about the fairies and the knights, would be pleased to know that I am still working the mine for the correct usage of the English language that she so treasured.
E. E. CARR
September 20, 2010
Essay 497
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Kevin’s commentary: An essay that reads a bit like a shotgun blast. At its core, though, it is somewhat revealing: I now know that use of the word “cattywampus” is perhaps the only thing that my father’s side of the family shares with my mother’s side. Of course my mother herself hates that word, but I’ve inherited it anyway.