Free Wordcatcher by Phil Cousineau

for secret purposes. The language or “slanted talk” of street gangs, criminals, mendicants, villains, beggars, prisoners, artistes, or rogues (also called “rogers”)—all those who feel the need for angled, skewed ,
coded language. According to Dr. Johnson, cant is probably from Latin cantus , implying the odd tone of voice used by vagrants; but some imagine it to be a corruption of quaint . “Clear your mind of cant ,” he scolded Boswell, for he thought it “barbarous jargon,” and one of his ideals with the language was to purify it. The Oxford Dictionary of Word History defines cant as an allusion to “singing,” from cantare , the singing of choirs in the streets or beggars “singing” for alms. Skeats writes that it was “at first a beggar’s whine; hence, hypocrisy.” Cassidy makes a persuasive case that Irish was the “first literate vernacular in Europe,” providing English with thousands of words, among them cant , which he suggests hails from the Irish caint , “speech, talk, and conversation.” Thus, cant is evidence that there are always at least two levels of any given language, the official and the unofficial, the surface and the subterranean. Some cant survives, like the talk of gypsies; some is lost forever, such as the secret language of women in classical Greece. Companion words include cantankerous , a blend word of cant and rancorous , bitter talk. Recant then means something like “to take back your whining words.” Gibberish is another form of the secret language of rogues, imitative of chattering sounds, possibly a corruption of jabber , which in turn derives from French gaber , to cheat. Coming full circle, we find that cant is considered gibberish by the threshold guardians of language who often feel cheated—or left out—by the secret language of the street that is often far more alive and vibrant than their own.

CAPPUCCINO
    Espresso coffee mixed or topped with steamed milk or cream. For me, the perfect cup of cappuccino resembles one of Morandi’s still-life paintings, trembling with earthen browns and whites. However, the word arose from the beverage’s inspired resemblance to the cappuccio, or long, pointed brown hoods worn by the Capuchin order of Italian friars. From the monk’s habit to the coffee habit didn’t take long; the word appeared in English in 1785. The first use of cappuccino in American English is recorded in 1948, after the rapid rise of cappuccino machines in America’s postwar fascination with European culture. Thus, a true cappuccino is a divine breakfast drink in Italy that begins with a strong shot of espresso followed by a dollop of velvety steamed milk, which insulates the drink, and often, like a monk’s hood, which helps him focus by keeping away the outside world, it leads to contemplative thought. Either way, cappuccino is a habit that’s hard to break. In the comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer the mock beat poet Mike Myers holds up a manhole-cover-sized cappuccino at a North Beach, San Francisco café and snarls to the waitress, “Excuse me, but I think I ordered a LARGE cappuccino! ” Companion words include the capuchin monkey , so called for the tuft of black cowl-like hair, and feather , the slight verb favored by certain baristas to describe “the rising of cream on the surface of a cup of tea or coffee.”

CATAWAMPUS
    Awry, askew, askance . A bumptious-sounding Appalachian word, first recorded in 1840, for “mixed up; out of balance.” As the lexicographers say, it’s O.O.O., of obscure origin, but we can rest assured in this case that it is probably of “humorous formation.” If you’re on the mountain overlooking Knoxville and an old hunter says, “You’re all catawampus ,” he means you’re lost, or you’ve lurched off track, or maybe you need a chiropractor, or maybe he thinks you’re as crooked as the road you just meandered down in your ’32 Ford truck. For some recondite reason that should keep the word