# kitty corner / catty corner / diagonal / catercornered / cater-cornered / caterwise / cater



## fsm*

Hi everyone,

In my family we always said "kitty corner" for something located across an intersection diagonally. At least that's what I thought we were saying. I've never seen it written. And now that I think of it, perhaps we were saying "kinny corner" with an n sound. I have also run into many people who say "catty corner" to describe the same thing. I have always had a suspicion that both forms were some kind of weird slang and so I now say "diagonal from here" to get around the issue. 

What do other English speakers around the U.S. and around the world use in this situation? Looking forward to your responses.


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## bennymix

I've heard 'kitty' and 'catty' in western and eastern US.


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## cyberpedant

My experience:
kitty 40%
katty 60%
kinny 0.0%


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## srk

Ngram shows that several expressions meaning the same thing are principally AE.  BE use is small.


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## bennymix

There are surely a dozen threads on this issue.

By the way, as I read the n-gram, both forms, esp. 'kitty' are more common in BE, than they are in AE (in the respective corpora?).


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## Myridon

A map based on one survey:
http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_76.html
My version, caddy-corner, is not in the survey.


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## RM1(SS)

The actual word, of course, is _catercornered_.  I've always said "kitty-cornered."


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## fsm*

RM1(SS) said:


> The actual word, of course, is _catercornered_.  I've always said "kitty-cornered."



Thank you for this. I've been curious to know the origin of these childlike words, but didn't know how to look it up. It turns out that _catercornered _is related etymologically to the French _quatre_.


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## bennymix

That's interesting, fsm.  "Catty" as related to French "quatre".


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## cambareriv

Thank you all for shedding light on this expression "Kiddy corner"  You have really been very helpful.


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## velisarius

I'd never heard of kitty corner, or any of the alternatives in the title of this thread - and now it's "kiddy corner" too? Where have you seen it, cambareriv?


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## Loob

bennymix said:


> By the way, as I read the n-gram, both forms, esp. 'kitty' are more common in BE, than they are in AE (in the respective corpora?).


This is the post that puzzles me. Because of frequent exposure to AmE, I know what the various kitty-catty-cater options mean. But I have never heard any of them in BrE.


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## Hermione Golightly

> But I have never heard any of them in BrE.



Never in the UK, only in the USA.


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## Andygc

Loob said:


> This is the post that puzzles me. Because of frequent exposure to AmE, I know what the various kitty-catty-cater options mean. But I have never heard any of them in BrE.


Don't be puzzled. It's a low frequency ngram. The distinction between AE and BE in the corpus is not wholly reliable. There's a series of publications about cats called "Kitty Corner" and there is an author called "Kitty Corner" who has written books about motivation and depression. 

PS I had never heard or seen this expression until I saw this thread.


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## dojibear

I grew up (in the suburbs west of New York City) hearing and using the expression "kitty-corner" meaning "diagonally opposite at a 4-way intersection". Such an intersection has 4 "corners" (sidewalk spots adjacent to both roads).


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## bennymix

Hermione Golightly said:


> Never in the UK, only in the USA.



Hi Hermione,
But British people--at least some of you--have caterways and caterwise--(adv) for crossing diagonally.

*Full text of "A student's pastime; being a select series of articles ...*
https://archive.org/stream/.../studentspastimeb00skeauoft_djvu.txt
The result is that the English Dialect _Dictionary_ will be able to make very free use of it; .... For myself, I had the special advantage of residing in _Cambridge_ before entering ...... 4) we find ' _Caterways_, Catering, adv. used of crossing diagonally.


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## bennymix

Loob said:


> This is the post that puzzles me. Because of frequent exposure to AmE, I know what the various kitty-catty-cater options mean. But I have never heard any of them in BrE.



The post is based on the two graphs showing about the same frequency.    I have no idea if the sample is good and whether, if at all, it allows any inference about whether British people say 'kitty corner'.


*ADDED later*: I miscounted the leading zeros. In fact the graphs indicate about a ten-fold difference. Even that may be questioned in light of sample size and issues raised by subsequent posters.


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## Loob

bennymix said:


> Hi Hermione,
> But British people--at least some of you--have caterways and caterwise--(adv) for crossing diagonally.
> 
> *Full text of "A student's pastime; being a select series of articles ...*
> https://archive.org/stream/.../studentspastimeb00skeauoft_djvu.txt
> The result is that the English Dialect _Dictionary_ will be able to make very free use of it; .... For myself, I had the special advantage of residing in _Cambridge_ before entering ...... 4) we find ' _Caterways_, Catering, adv. used of crossing diagonally.


You must have searched long and hard to find that, benny!


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## wandle

Hermione Golightly said:


> Never in the UK, only in the USA.


A new one on me, too; but 'catercorner(ed)' is in Chambers.


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## PaulQ

bennymix said:


> But British people--at least some of you--have caterways and caterwise--(adv) for crossing diagonally.
> 
> *Full text of "A student's pastime; being a select series of articles ...*


I think the "*at least some of you*" is restricted to the demographic and contemporaries of the author: The Rev. Walter W. Skeat, Litt.D., D.C.L., LL.D., PH.D., Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge *1896*.


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## Andygc

Loob said:


> You must have searched long and hard to find that, benny!


Actually, it's not that hard, but "caterways" is none of the words in the thread title - kitty corner / catty corner / diagonal / catercornered / cater-cornered

OED the adverb "cater"





> _U.S._ and _dial._Diagonally.
> 1881  S. Evans Evans's Leicestershire Words (new ed.)   Cater and Cater-cornered, diagonal; diagonally. To ‘cut cater’ in the case of velvet, cloth, etc., is..‘cut on the cross’. Cater-snozzle, to make an angle; to ‘mitre’.
> *Derivatives*
> catercross  n.
> 1875  W. D. Parish Dict. Sussex Dial. at Catercross  If you goos caterwise across the field you'll find the stile.
> caterways adv.
> 1874  in Notes & Queries 5th Ser. I. 361 (Surrey words)  Caterways, catering, to cross diagonally.
> caterwise adv.


Derived from the verb "cater"


> _dial._To place or set rhomboidally; to cut, move, go, etc., diagonally.
> 1577  B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry ii. f. 69v  The trees are set checkerwise, and so catred [L. partim in quincuncem directis], as looke which way ye wyl, they lye leuel.


Etymology, the noun "cater"





> Four. _Obs. rare_


Etymology, French _quatre_ four



PaulQ said:


> I think the "*at least some of you*" is restricted to the demographic and contemporaries of the author:


I don't think that's so, Paul. It seems more to be a word he collected during his exploration of dialects. May I be forgiven for an excessive quotation of the source of bennymix's post, from a definition of "kittering":


> Kittering (7 S. vii. 76; 1889).
> This word presents no difficulty. It is a disguised form of the Provincial English catering, which the witness probably pronounced better than it was taken down, and which the judge explained with perfect correctness (In the examination of a witness lately, he was asked how the boy crossed the street ; to which he replied, 'A little bit kittering'). Cater, to cut diagonally, is duly given in Halliwell ; and it is used in Kent and Surrey. In the list of Surrey provincialisms (E. D. S., Gloss., c. 4) we find 'Caterways, Catering, adv. used of crossing diagonally.' It would be of much assistance to me if those who inquire after words, and who by so doing confess that they do not quite understand them, would refrain in every case from suggesting an etymology. In the present case the suggestion that kittering represents 'quartering' is just the very thing to throw an investigator off the track, precisely because there is a real ultimate connexion between the words. Quartering is ultimately due to the Lat. quartus, an ordinal numeral. Cater, on the other hand, is due to the Lat. quatuor, a cardinal number. It makes all the difference, because the former r in quarter would not have disappeared after that fashion. Cater is the correct Old English word, the number 'four' on a die being so called. It is the correct descendant of the Old French katre, four.


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## Loob

Thanks, Andy.
Yes, it looks like yet another example of an old form which has been maintained in AmE,  but lost in (standard) BrE.


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## PaulQ

Andygc said:


> I don't think that's so, Paul.


Fair enough, but (i) it is in a book of dialect, and (ii) the quote appears to show that the judge felt it necessary to explain the term to the court, and (iii) throws a spanner into the works by the two etymologies.


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## Andygc

My point was only that it wasn't his demographic. The "at least some of you" doesn't even include the worthy Rev Professor Skeatt. And it is nice to see that his etymology agrees with the OED - "cater" meaning "four", from the French quatre/katre.


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## bennymix

Andygc said:


> My point was only that it wasn't his demographic. The "at least some of you" doesn't even include the worthy Rev Professor Skeatt. And it is nice to see that his etymology agrees with the OED - "cater" meaning "four", from the French quatre/katre.



Thanks for posting your research, Andy.  Fascinating!


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## bennymix

Loob said:


> Thanks, Andy.
> Yes, it looks like yet another example of an old form which has been maintained in AmE,  but lost in (standard) BrE.



If the old forms be forgot, it's up to us Yanks to keep the delightful ones alive.


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## srk

Loob said:


> This is the post that puzzles me.





bennymix said:


> The post is based on the two graphs showing *about the same frequency*.


I think you must have miscounted the leading zeroes, benny.  From those ngrams for the year 2000:

kitty-corner in AE 0.0000017210%
kitty-corner in BE 0.0000003306%

Ngram with direct comparison.  You have to click on the search button in the chart to see the results.


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## RM1(SS)

Andygc said:


> OED the adverb "cater"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cater-snozzle, to make an angle
Click to expand...

Now I have to find a way to work that into a conversation....


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## PaulQ

srk said:


> I think you must have miscounted the leading zeroes, benny.  From those ngrams for the year 2000:
> 
> kitty-corner in AE 0.0000017210%
> kitty-corner in BE 0.0000003306%
> 
> Ngram with direct comparison.  You have to click on the search button in the chart to see the results.


Unfortunately, Google Ngram Viewer is a bit of a blunt instrument at this level. I have done the same search but with added terms "color" and "colour" - BE shows "color" as being 50% as popular as "colour" - which is clearly an error. When you check the references for "color", these appear to be AE books published in the UK - I suspect that the same has happened with the all but unknown "kitty-corner."


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## srk

PaulQ said:


> Unfortunately, Google Ngram Viewer is a bit of a blunt instrument at this level.


I'm sure that's right*.  The corpus for BE is labeled "Books predominantly in the English language that were published in Great Britain."  I don't know what that says about the word "color" in a book originally published in the US and later published in the UK, and there can't be a BE spelling for "kitty-corner."

The charts _are_ good enough to show that


srk said:


> [The] expressions ... are principally AE. BE use is small.



* I didn't show the percentages to five-figure accuracy to say the chart is accurate, but to cite numbers that actually appear in the chart.


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## ewie

Like other folks on this diagonally opposite corner of the Atlantic Ocean, I'm only dimly aware of _cater-corner_ (etc.) from American books etc.

I find _kitty-cornered_ wonderfully *quaint*


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## Copyright

ewie said:


> I'd like to finish by saying that I find kitty-cornered wonderfully quaint


Then you'll be happy to know that I and my avatar have always used kitty-corner, as have all our Midwestern relations.


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## velisarius

Copyright said:


> Then you'll be happy to know that I and my avatar have always used kitty-corner, as have all our Midwestern relations.



How to put this? I think it's the catty aspect of this expression that puts me off and I don't find it "quaint" in a nice way. I keep thinking "What is that "kitty corner" thing actually _for_?" 

We have an ageing kitty that persists in being "naughty" in corners.


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## Copyright

In defense of kitty-corner, I add to the fact that it's what I heard all my life that it's easier to say that any of the alternatives.


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## bennymix

srk said:


> I think you must have miscounted the leading zeroes, benny.  From those ngrams for the year 2000:
> 
> kitty-corner in AE 0.0000017210%
> kitty-corner in BE 0.0000003306%
> 
> Ngram with direct comparison.  You have to click on the search button in the chart to see the results.




Yes,  srk, I miscounted leading zeros.    The graphs, whatever their accuracy,   reflect a tenfold* difference in favor of AE.   I have asked the mods to add a note to post #17.

Thanks to other commenters, too, Paul in particular.

--
See Myr's post #37 for more accurate estimate.  Thanks, Myr!


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## bennymix

PaulQ said:


> Unfortunately, Google Ngram Viewer is a bit of a blunt instrument at this level. I have done the same search but with added terms "color" and "colour" - BE shows "color" as being 50% as popular as "colour" - which is clearly an error. When you check the references for "color", these appear to be AE books published in the UK - I suspect that the same has happened with the all but unknown "kitty-corner."



Hi Paul,
I appreciate your wise contributions, here.   Yes, I misread the n-grams and sample size makes inferences dubious.  "Kitty corner" is very rare in BE.   The larger issue you raise is something of the old prescriptive/descriptive controversy, esp. regarding dictionaries, usage, etc.  Don't you think?

What is BE?  Is it actual usage by people in the UK?   OK, let's discount tourists and new arrivals, but what about someone who came and lived in the UK from age 10 and can pass for a native BE speaker;  indeed, may be a native speaker of English?

Here's an example
*Top rated Tourist Attractions in London's West End,*

Brian Dearsley.

London's exciting West End is famous as the city's entertainment and shopping district. Located smack-bang in the middle of London - hence its position as the second most expensive location in the world after Tokyo - it's where you'll find exclusive shops and famous department stores kitty-corner to superb boutique hotels, restaurants and cafés. It's also where you'll find the city's best theaters and biggest cinemas.

===
The fellow knows London.   Why?   Turns out he's born in Canada, but family moved to UK when he was 10.  Presumably spent 10-20 years, at least, in the UK.   Presently he' back in Canada.  If he were living again in the UK, would his writings count as BE?

12 Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in London's West End | PlanetWare
===

Take this example:

*Kitty corner to St Pancras Renaissance - Picture of YHA London St ...*
YHA London St Pancras - Hostel Reviews, Photos & Price Comparison - TripAdvisor...
YHA _London_ St Pancras, _London_ Picture: _Kitty corner_ to St Pancras Renaissance - Check out TripAdvisor members' 50017 candid photos and videos.

This site is "trip advisor. co.uk";  is that going to be considered a BE publication?  




London 
JOIN
*Kitty corner to St Pancras Renaissance - Picture of YHA London St Pancras, London*
*Photo: “Kitty corner to St Pancras Renaissance”*

--------------------
Well, it says 'advisor' which I gather you British folks are not partial to, so maybe this item, like the one above, is not written by someone born in the UK--but for a UK company!   Certainly the person must know the UK.   Maybe can pass?  (Of course someone will say the site is for visitors and is using their lingo to be understood.    So BE as used must be directed to other BE speakers, not tourists unacquainted with the Queen's English!

=================
Anyway, not to flog the dead horse, the language of people residing in the UK is a porous entity, with (in my opinion) murky boundaries.   It is changing according to immigration and emigration, as is Canadian English (where I am) and American English (in which I grew up and went to university).  Global capitalism--publishing, film, etc.--  is 'importing' new words into each entity, influencing usage.  

Consider the Aussie, Murdoch who owns so much of the English language media:

Keith Rupert Murdoch was born on 11 March 1931 in Melbourne to Sir Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch (_née_ Greene; 1909–2012). He is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
-----

He's labeled an American in several places.

Of course, I can't really argue with a prescriptivist who demands that BE be defined as used by _educated persons of the upper class in England, who are born in England, and educated there, with the same applying to their parents_!   In effect, "the Queen's English", literally.
-------

Discussing things with you and other highly educated British people is, as always, a delight!


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## Myridon

bennymix said:


> The post is based on the two graphs showing about the same frequency.


The numbers on the left of the two graphs are:
0.00000180
0.000000350
The ratio of AE uses to BE uses is 18:3.5

The scale of the graph changes to fit the data.


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## bennymix

Myridon said:


> The numbers on the left of the two graphs are:
> 0.00000180
> 0.000000350
> The ratio of AE uses to BE uses is 18:3.5
> 
> The scale of the graph changes to fit the data.



Yes, Myr, I've already corrected this (requested mods to add to original post).   See my post #35, above, also.

Thanks!


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## Andygc

Benny, the ngrams are based on books, so web posts are neither here nor there in this context. 

Brian Dearsley's post is spelt in American.
The person who posted the Trip Advisor image, stringd, lives in Salt Lake City. 
Murdoch does not edit his papers so does not introduce us to new words (we already know most of them from the works of Barry Humphries). Some people's inability to differentiate between Strine and an American accent doesn't seem to add anything to your case.

BE is the version of English that is generally accepted as normal in Britain. Of course it's changing, otherwise we'd still be bobbing about saying things like _Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . ._


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## PaulQ

Andygc said:


> otherwise we'd still be bobbing about saying things like _Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . ._


... and you don't?


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## ewie

Andygc said:


> _Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . ._


I only ever said that once, in 1409, and I only said it then because I had a crossbow to my head.  And I'm fairly sure I mispronounced _droghte_.


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## PaulQ




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## bennymix

PaulQ said:


> That's a good question. Basically and not sparing any blushes but being brutally frank - British English is what I would expect to come from the mouths of Her Majesty, Sir David Attenborough, the saintly Theresa May, Dr David Starkey, serious newscasters, etc, and me. It also includes any and all impenetrable dialects of this Blessed Isle, witty neologism, sage epithets, euphonious phrases, and general bons mots (Ed. Bons mots is not BE – it is impossible for *anything* French to be BE.)
> 
> BE is the English that we would expect to hear on the famous “Clapham Omnibus”; it is the language of the majority. It is an English in which excludes 99% of all AE words and phrases promoted by
> 
> TV series,
> 
> "movies" ,
> 
> thrusting advertising gurus,
> 
> fashion writers,
> 
> the self-seeking,
> 
> the self-absorbed,
> 
> the trendy,
> 
> those wishing to overtly hint that they often “fly across the pond” and
> 
> those of some subculture or other that, as qualification for membership, requires an alien sociolect often accompanied by wearing a baseball cap backwards, etc, etc,
> (This list is not exhaustive but I do not have access to my “Grumpy Old Man’s Club” handbook for the full list.) The remaining 1% of AE may be used freely but only ironically – rolling the eyes when uttered helps.
> 
> You may think that there are some AE words and phrases that BE has “adopted”. We do not “adopt” anything that is basically “wrong”. And if it is “right” then it always was BE – we just had not got1 round to saying it.
> 
> Basically, BE is the English that everyone (Americans and foreigners alike) can _actually _speak but fails to do so through lack of application, poor education, and a desire to draw attention to themselves – the latter being *most *unBritish.
> 
> Once you understand the above, “kitty-corner” becomes a risible, outlandish, phrase, redundant in all senses and all sensible conversations, literature, prose, and poetry alike. Those who say it, if they claim at all to be a BE speaker, fall into one or more of the categories in para.2 above and are to be shunned by society and their ill-expressed contributions derided by their peers.
> 
> I have viewed your sparse examples:
> Brian Dearsley is flaunting his trans-Atlantic credentials and is a bounder. I had assumed him to be American and thus excused, but as a Commonwealth Citizen, he should know better.
> Any man and his dog can type things into “Trip-advisor” and often do.
> The laws of libel prevent me from commenting on Mr Murdoch.
> 
> As a one line answer to your “What is BE?” I can do no better than Mr M Python “I may not be an artist but I know a good picture when I see one.”
> 
> 1 note this is not “gotten”, which is wrong, and therefore *not* BE.



Brilliantly formulated!   Thanks!  I guess I'm only in the penumbra of the true language, here in Canada.  I escaped from the outer darkness--excepting for 'movies', etc.-- of the US some 50 years back, so maybe I'm destined for some kind of limbo for those God doesn't entirely reject, but is, on balance, a bit unsure of.  Maybe there's hope for my linguistic soul after a few centuries of purification.


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## Keith Bradford

bennymix said:


> There are surely a dozen threads on this issue.
> 
> By the way, as I read the n-gram, both forms, esp. 'kitty' are more common in BE, than they are in AE (in the respective corpora?).


Maybe that's because the word *diagonal *isn't used in that ngram. Once you insert it, the others disappear into oblivion so far as Brits are concerned.


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## bennymix

Having re-read this thread, I think Paul's brilliant post #39 summed it up well.   Esp.  "we* do not adopt anything."  *(British people)

I think one corollary he drew applies here:    it is impossible for *anything* French to be BE.)

"Catty" is from 'quatre' it seems, so it's clearly disqualified from BE.    It seems you folks are still smarting from the battle of Hastings.

My mother, born in Canada, but raised in California, lifelong resident and US citizen often said 'catty corner' [from].   To my ear, it does sound rural or southern AE.   But that's a common pattern, is it not;  parts of the States keep alive words and usages that died off in British use centuries ago.

Ample make this Bed —
Make this Bed with Awe —
[...]
Be its Mattress straight —
Be its Pillow round —


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## kentix

I don't think of it as rural or Southern. I have never heard anyone say "diagonally opposite" in day-to-day speech. I have heard "on the opposite corner". That's what I would probably say if/when I didn't say kitty corner. Since I've said kitty corner all my life, as have the people around me, the use of catty corner does sound a bit odd. That reminds me more of a feline.

Here's an interesting page about it, with a regional map for the U.S. and Canada.

Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner?


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## bennymix

kentix said:


> I don't think of it as rural or Southern. I have never heard anyone say "diagonally opposite" in day-to-day speech. I have heard "on the opposite corner". That's what I would probably say if/when I didn't say kitty corner. Since I've said kitty corner all my life, as have the people around me, the use of catty corner does sound a bit odd. That reminds me more of a feline.
> 
> Here's an interesting page about it, with a regional map for the U.S. and Canada.
> 
> Kitty-Corner or Catty-Corner?



Your map shows what I proposed.  Rural and Southern US (mainly) for 'catty'.


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## kentix

Yes, but it's all the way up in Iowa, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Illinois so it's not exactly Southern. It looks like some is even in Massachusetts.


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## bennymix

Good points, though I don't see much in New England.   Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, yes.  Not Southern.


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