Inspired by something I said last night when complaining about an achievement at work and the only way I could think to describe it was “pure frippery.”

  • Wolf314159@startrek.website
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    20 days ago

    Dog-eared means that a corner got folded down (making a diagonal) on a page as a bookmark. A dog-eared book isn’t necessarily beat-up beyond the damage to the corners of pages. Catty-cornered or kitty-cornered is adjacent to something on the diagonal, i.e. not orthogonally next to it like up, down, left, or right. So there is an argument to be made for a loose (coincidental) connection between those ideas, but I don’t think they come from the same roots.

    • Classy@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      19 days ago

      I’m my area it’s said “caddy corner”, or you might hear the random old euphemistic “caddy-wampus” which means either “diagonal to reference position” or “all fucked up!”