What is cack handed?

Question

I am writing this after looking at 24 or so answers and I think they are great. I have known the use of the expression as left hand, clumsy and knew the reference to the unclean hand. Cack to me does mean ****, babies are taught to say caca in English and the same sound pretty universally seems to mean ****. A kind of Jungian universal.

Answer 1

Awkward in its plainest sense. Some one that tends to make a bit of a mess of things when doing physical jobs

Answer 2

It’s certainly British. It’s only obscure, though, if you’re from somewhere else, since it’s a well-known British informal term for somebody who is inept or clumsy. By extension, as I know to my cost, being of the sinistral variety myself, it means somebody left-handed, who does everything “backwards” and so looks clumsy or awkward. It first appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century.

The American Heritage Dictionary suggests it comes from Old Norse keikr, bent backwards, and other American dictionaries also suggest this. I disagree, as do most British works of reference. The direct association is with cack, another fine Old English term, for excrement or dung. Cachus was Old English for a privy, and both words come from Latin cacare, to defecate.

It almost certainly comes from the very ancient tradition, which has developed among peoples who were mainly right-handed, that one reserved the left hand for cleaning oneself after defecating and used the right hand for all other purposes. At various times this has been known in most cultures. Some consider it rude even to be given something using the left hand. So to be left-handed was to use the cack hand or be cack-handed.

There are similar terms in other languages, such as the French main de merde for somebody awkward or butter-fingered

Answer 3

Left handed.

Answer 4

My grandmother used to call me cack handed when I messed things up. Anything done in a shoddy way. not done correctley was called cack handed. Do not know why, but when people did not do things properly, they were called cack handed. Maybe a century ago, it would have been cloven footed. Who the hell knows, or cares.

Answer 5

A term used to describe someone who uses their left hand (the wrong hand). because in tribal parts of africa the left hand is used for *** wiping and the right for eating and greating....Hows that..i think it may not be the best answer but my mate jason swears it is the real reason!! I myself am left handed and beleive that the most talented persons on earth are left handed!!! So those wiping their assess with the left are wasting their talent!!!!

Answer 6

Usualy refers to someone who is left handed but sometimes used when some one is clumsy with their hands.

Answer 7

It originally meant being left handed, but seems to mean nowdays being clumsy in handling things.

Answer 8

I think it is best used in golf when a player has the left hand lower than the right.It does NOT mean he or she is left handed.

Answer 9

The hand you use to clean away cack. True

Answer 10

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-cac1.htm
http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/sayingsc.htm
http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/cack-handed

lots of places to read about the use and origin of this phrase, which is usualy used to mean left-handed, or clumsy.....