this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
49 points (100.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26858 readers
2123 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I was always under the impression that was a similar expression to 'dog-eared', i.e. a bit beaten up. But maybe I'm conflating it with another phrase

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week 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!"