Unfortunately, I seem to have this mixed up in my mind with "catamite". I have an either vaguer sense of what that means, but I'm pretty sure it's not something you will come upon while traipsing through the mountains.
...Yes, in this instance, I was pretty much right. It seems to refer to any of a number of small, shorttailed wild cats, and in this category bobcats and lynx are included. And yes, it is a contraction of 'cat of the mountain'. It's not, like 'tantamount,' a Latin compound at all. In etymology, beware of resemblances.
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That was a new one for me!!! I rushed towards tantamount and catatonic and tried to blend them...
ReplyDeleteYes, catatonic would have lead me astray too, if I'd only thought of it.
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes a cat is simply a cat.
Glad to see a new blog post from you. Headed there now...
The University of Vermont's sports teams are called the Catamounts. Whether salaciously witty students sometimes call them the Catamites, I don't know.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Western Carolina University also fields teams under the name of Catamounts. I almost used one of their logos as my image, but I realized that would give it away.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I ought to do "catamite", but I wonder if that will take this away from the PG rating this blog has so far more or less had...
I wonder, because without a sentence in front of me to puzzle out, I do not actually know what a catamite is.
Did I ever mention one of my favourite book openings ever from Earthly Powers:
ReplyDeleteIt was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.
You did not. I read Earthly Powers, although I don't remember too much, but it's probably the only reason I have any glimmer of what a catamite is at all. It's like a bedbug, right?
ReplyDeleteJust kidding.
The kind of thing I remember from novels is so extremely random. What I remember from that one is the main character saying something somewhere along the way about how he had learned all these languages because it was just what one ought to do. I thought, wow, that's true.
And yet, I haven't.
It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday and I was in bed with my catamount when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.
ReplyDeleteDaring!
Great literature reveals that this is just the kind of mistake that can happen in the dark. Though personally, I've always found Jacob's confusion between Rachel and Leah a little hard to buy. I think there's just a faint whiff of opportunism in it all.
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ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I believe that a veil made Tamar unrecognizable to Judah, either. Those biblical characters were an amazingly randy and opportunistic lot. It's a miracle that stuff is read in schools.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
In her biography, Zora Neale Hurston tells of reading the Bible with her friend for just such 'edifying' bits when they were children, simultanously garnering praise from the adults for their devoutness. Talk about having it both ways!
ReplyDeleteUh, make that her autobiography (Dust Tracks on the Road).
ReplyDeleteI remember asking my surprisingly enlightened sunday school teacher why it was that Kings Saul, David and Solomon all started off obeying God and being really good and then gradually earned Gods displeasure and acted really bad.
ReplyDeleteWith so many wives in the harem he explained the kings probably got syphilis and went mad.
You had a lot of questions as a child, didn't you?
ReplyDeleteYour Sunday school teacher may have been enlightened, but just a tad misogynist. I would tend to blame the tetchiness of the Higher Powered partner.