just curious

[arethinn]

This is a diagram of a four-way intersection of two paths. Corners A and D (or B and C) are:

1. Kitty-corner
2. Catty-corner
3. Something else

I usually say #1, but apparently #2 is better etymologically (from Old French catre, four).

(note to self: need icon for "curious")

eta: I wonder if this is related at all to cattywampus (which I would have spelled caddywompus). Wiktionary seems to think so since it links to cater-corner as a "see also".

Comments

[tangyabominy]

..."across from each other"? I don't have a tendency to use either phrase. Though I would have thought "catty-corner" was correct.

[arethinn]

I got the labels wrong, sorry.

Edit: So why, aside from knowing the etymology (did you?), would you have said "catty" was the correct choice?

[tangyabominy]

I think I'd heard something about "cater-corner" before. Either way, "kitty" sounded a bit like an eggcorn to me, for reasons I can't put my finger on. It just seems like one of those things where, since I'm pretty sure the original etymology doesn't have much to do with cats (even if I don't really know what it is, beyond a possibility that it might be from cater-corner, but then I don't know what "cater" would mean in this context either), "catty" is more likely to evolve from a given non-feline-referent word than "kitty".

Of course, that's personal brain-bias, and others may think it sounds the other way around. :)

[tangyabominy]

(Also, to be clear, it wasn't the wrongly-assigned labels that were confusing me. In your new assignment, I'd say "diagonally across from each other". My dialect just doesn't have the phrase.)

[arethinn]

Ah. See, the way I had it before, "across from each other" (that is, "directly across the street") would have been a way I might have described it, so I assumed the mislabeling was the problem. The diagonal corners I wouldn't say were "across from each other" since that's ambiguous with the ones which are directly across. ("diagonally across" is of course unambiguous, but it's more syllables than "catty-corner" and thus something I'd resort to as an explanation rather than a first utterance, I think.)

[tangyabominy]

Yeah, "catty-corner" just doesn't spring to mind for me. I knew of it, but it's not one of those things that inhabits the vocabulary I use (although it may now!).

Of course, unless I'm describing something where the layout is right there in front of me, I'm very unlikely to describe anything as diagonally across from anything else. I'll probably be the one saying something like "you know that corner with the thing? Uh, well, sort of near that corner, I think it might be somewhere across the street, there's a thing. I think." Even with a map or something in front of me, I'll probably point and say "over there, and over there". Describing complex spatial relationships of things to one another in an abstract way is not something I'm wired to do; once we get into abstracts like that I've forgotten what the original thing looked like.

[digitalsidhe]

I tend to vary between "catty-corner" and "catercorner". I vary like that partly because I keep forgetting to look up which one is correct (if, indeed, either of them is).

[arethinn]

From what I've seen today, I think "cater-corner" is the closest to correct, and I'm starting to wonder where I picked up "kitty-corner"!

[digitalsidhe]

I'm sure I've heard "kitty-corner" before this, though. I don't use it myself, but it's not unfamiliar.

[feyandstrange]

I went and looked it up afterwards to be sure, but I was right the first time: "Cater-corner" is correct, and it's mangled from the French "quatre" meaning "four". But I wasn't sure if that was just being built by my formerly French-bilingual brain, which is why I checked. I'd accept "catty-corner" as a - whatdoyoucallem, when you're transcribing speech: "Marge sez them kids ain't catty-corner to the library no more, they's gone down the block."

[lupagreenwolf.livejournal.com]

I always said catty-corner.

[danodea.livejournal.com]

um, I usually say, "diagonal".
I blame the mathematics major.
(well, it probably would blame me, if it could talk...)

My mother would have said, "catty-corner".

[tiggrrl.livejournal.com]

I say kitty-corner usually, but sometimes catty-corner, and I would definitely have spelled it catawumpus.