Heartshome Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 Hi all. This is a real 'memory stirrer' for me. Mum always used this phrase, if I was trying to do something and just couldn't get it right. Like! not getting on very well trying to tie shoe laces, or fastening buttons, or! trying to fix a screw into something and just couldn't make it work, that sort of thing! Can't find reference to it in any Dictionary I've looked in, although we know what it means, just wondered where it originated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lysanderix Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 My understanding ,like yours,is….clumsy. Derivation …according to my copy of Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology it is a dialect word meaning….”void excrement” and comes from the Middle Dutch …cacken. There are similar words in German,Icelandic, Czech and the Irish…cacaim.😏 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athy Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 I understand it to mean "clumsy" as noted above, but thought that its origin was synonymous with "left-handed", as in a right-handed person trying to do something left-handed (or vice versa) and making a mess of it. My parents used to use "keggy-handed" to mean "left-handed"; the two terms may be linked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lysanderix Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 Indeed, the Merriam Webster on line thesaurus states the term is an alternative to…left handed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartshome Posted March 31, 2022 Author Share Posted March 31, 2022 Ahh! interesting, thanks for that folks! 😊 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinR Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 Usually spelled "cack-handed". There's a long tradition the the right hand was the "clean" hand used for feeding and the like whilst the left was used for cleaning up your, well, cack. If you use toilets in Egypt you'll find a little valve on the right hand side of the bowl that directs a spray upwards, you use your left to clean. No-one would ever touch food with their left (however well washed), it's incredibly dirty and bad manners. So, someone whose dominant hand is their left is "cack-handed", and since left-handers are often portrayed as clumsy, there's your explanation. This prejudice seems universal, to the Romans the right was "dexter", think dexterous, clever, able whilst the left was "sinister". 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athy Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 40 minutes ago, MartinR said: Usually spelled "cack-handed". There's a long tradition the the right hand was the "clean" hand used for feeding and the like whilst the left was used for cleaning up your, well, cack. If you use toilets in Egypt you'll find a little valve on the right hand side of the bowl that directs a spray upwards, you use your left to clean. No-one would ever touch food with their left (however well washed), it's incredibly dirty and bad manners. That's a crap explanation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinR Posted April 1, 2022 Share Posted April 1, 2022 Ha ha!😄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManoutotCity Posted April 5, 2022 Share Posted April 5, 2022 In the Forces, I was billeted with a Turkish Army Officer for a while and during regular comparison of our respective languages he indicated that the word ‘kack’ ( or something that sounded very like it, I can’t now be precise with the spelling he used) DID refer to the product of a human bodily function.....and as others here suggest, it could well have been the strict use of hands for that and eating. He was a Muslim. So maybe the word adopted by BrItish soldiers on postings .. as so many were....was then used within our civilian population simply to indicate use of the inappropriate hand (ie the left one) to carry out mundane physical tasks with insufficient dexterity... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinR Posted April 5, 2022 Share Posted April 5, 2022 It's way older than that. Ultimately it comes from the Latin cacare "to void excrement". Middle Dutch Cacken, German Kacken, Danish Kakke also Polish and Czech. The earliest recorded use of the verb is 1436 and a bit later Caxton (1485) had: "One that hadde cacked golde". The noun is only recorded from 1600, but this is misleading. The word must have been in use 600 years earlier since Old English has "cac-hus" for a latrine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athy Posted April 5, 2022 Share Posted April 5, 2022 2 hours ago, MartinR said: Caxton What an appropriate name. I remember "cack" being used to mean crap, many years ago, usually I think in the expression "a load of cack". But I can't remember whether that was during my Sheffield days or later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bikeman Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 Just to throw some light-hearted comment into this topic: I knew cack-handed as left handed, but I write with my right hand, throw balls or anything long-distance with my left, throw darts with my right hand, kick footballs with my left. So I'm totally mixed-up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinR Posted April 6, 2022 Share Posted April 6, 2022 Perhaps I should have mentioned, I first learnt the word "Cack" when I lived in the Black Country. That was probably more closely related to my growing up rather than any regionalism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athy Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 13 hours ago, Bikeman said: Just to throw some light-hearted comment into this topic: I knew cack-handed as left handed, but I write with my right hand, throw balls or anything long-distance with my left, throw darts with my right hand, kick footballs with my left. So I'm totally mixed-up! You kick footballs with your left hand? Now that IS mixed-up. It's not unknown in sport. For example, Lancashire and England cricketer James Anderson bowls right-handed and bats left-handed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinR Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 "The hand of God" as a certain Argentinian player once said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tozzin Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 I recall my mother using the word Pleck, as in “ look at this room it’s a right pleck “ it’s only recently I’ve found out it’s a Dutch word that just means place, this bit of information I received from my nephew who visited the town of Pleck, if that’s how it’s spelt, in Holland and he was told the answer to the use of the word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgathorpe56 Posted April 12, 2022 Share Posted April 12, 2022 Two mountains in Scotland named Carn Cac Beag and Carn Cac Mor. Beag meaning little or small and Mor meaning big. Both consisting of summits which are very rocky and lots of boulders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lysanderix Posted April 12, 2022 Share Posted April 12, 2022 In Scots Gaelic….cac translates as excrement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bikeman Posted April 20, 2022 Share Posted April 20, 2022 On 07/04/2022 at 08:20, Athy said: You kick footballs with your left hand? Now that IS mixed-up. It's not unknown in sport. For example, Lancashire and England cricketer James Anderson bowls right-handed and bats left-handed. Ha ha! Nice one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tozzin Posted April 21, 2022 Share Posted April 21, 2022 8 hours ago, Bikeman said: Ha ha! Nice one I’m right handed but always use a knife in my left hand and fork in my right. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now