This is how the latest grammar fight went down:
Zac: “Who wrote cayter-corner in this otherwise brilliantly written piece by Holland about coworking spaces?”
Kathy: “I did.”
Zac: “Cayter-corner?”
Kathy: “It’s spelled cater-corner but pronounced catter-corner.”
Holland: “I wrote kitty-corner.”
Kathy: “I changed it because Webster’s first is cater-corner.”
Zac: “Nobody says cater-corner. I’ve never even heard of cater-corner.”
Kathy: “Kitty-corner and catty-corner are bastardizations. The term originates from the Latin quattuor, meaning four-cornered, hence located on the diagonal. Southerners just started mispronouncing it in the 1800s.”
Holland: “I’d be OK with catty-corner.”
Kathy: “Cats have nothing to do with it.”
Zac: “They sit diagonally from me all the time. I’m changing it to catty-corner.”
Holland: “I think I usually say catty-corner, but in my head it was always spelled with a ‘k.'”
Tim: “Did somebody say catfight?”
