One interesting regional variation that I often inquire about is the use of the phrases kitty-corner and catty-corner. While these terms were not part of my upbringing, they are commonly used to refer to something being “diagonally across from someone or something”, with kitty being more prevalent in the north and west, and catty being associated with the Southern regions. During my research on the etymology of cadre, I made an unexpected discovery that both words have a common origin in the Latin word quattuor, meaning “four”. This Latin term evolved into the French quatre, which eventually led to the archaic word cater, originally signifying “cut into fourths” and later evolving to mean “diagonal”. In the 1830s, American English adopted the term cater-corner to describe something situated diagonally across from a corner, with the current variations kitty-corner and catty-corner emerging due to a folk etymological connection with cats.
