antedating catawampus (1839)

[Wilson Gray]

On 9/10/07, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      antedating catawampus (1839)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> United States? Telegraph, (Washington, DC) Thursday, July 23, 1835; pg. 798
> (=page 2 of 4 for this issue); Issue [200]; col A
>  [article begns:]    After some very catawampus chawing of the Philadelphia Vade
> Necum (a rival sporting paper), the Editor gives a programme of "THE DAY"
> --thus:
> EPITOME OF NEWS FOR SATURDAY
> Itemized and Condensed
>
> "Is the tale true, think ye?"
> "Very true, and not above a month old:--

> Here are _five justices_ hands to it!"--Shakespeare

"I swear to _God and four other white men!_"–Redd Foxx

-Wilson


> Fashionables leaving, People gathering, Cousind arriving, Horses bolting,
> Rockets flying, Tailors suffering....4th of July-ing.
>
> ***
> OED has 1840 for catawampous.
> According to Anatoly Liberman (July 20, 2007 blog at blog.oup.com):
>
> "Wampus, a noun with sufficient currency, means ?monster, hobgoblin,? a
> circumstance that came to the attention of lexicographers relatively late.
> ...Apparently, catawampuses were like ?bugs? (a bug is, among other things,
> a hobgoblin)."
>
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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