Jump to content

CAC-HANDED


Heartshome

Recommended Posts

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

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

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

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".

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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 account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...