From: "Phil Payne" 

Kack - German noun, mostly used by children and literal. kakken - Flemish verb
cack - English, especially in the North and usually figurative.

IMO the most persuasive of the theories is the one that takes the root to a
Middle German baby word for shit, used today by small German children.  The
Germans don't have the same inhibitions towards bodily functions that we
have - kack is heard _very_ frequently from small children.  The British
equivalent these days would undoubtedly be pooh.

I would be surprised if there wasn't a Yiddish analogue.

Cack-handed derives from the same word, and is probably rooted in the use
of the left hand for cleaning up.  To this day, it is incredibly impolite
even to show your left hand when eating in many if not most Asian
countries.  I had to go to a diplomatic reception in Bangladesh once and
had lessons from our own cook Jeshoda before I went on how to eat
Bangladeshi-style with a chapatti.

"Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:44e333ef{at}w3.nls.net...
> caca is Spanish word or Mexican slang for shit or nasty bad substance of
> unknown origin.  My wife has never heard of "macaca" as a
word, but she's
> only 50% fluent in Spanish.
>
> Gary
>
> "Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
> news:44e32557$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> > monkeys, mullets and mohawks
> >
> > http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/aug/15/monkeys_and_mullets
> >
> > Much of the speculation today about Sen. George Allen's bizarre comments
> > about a Webb campaign tracker named S.R. Sidarth revolves around
defining
> > exactly what he meant by calling the young man
"Macaca." Ezra Klein
> > suggests the word may be derived from a French insult often aimed at
North
> > Africans; Garance Franke-Ruta says it may have a Spanish-language
origin.
> > Both theories stipulate that the word connotes some kind of monkey, and
is
> > typically aimed at immigrants. Allen says he has no idea what he meant,
> > which is really comforting in a man who wants to be president.
> >
> > But less attention is being paid to the indisputable part of Allen's
> > remarks: his "welcome to America, and to the real world of
Virginia"
bit,
> > which obviously assumes that any dark-skinned person with an Indian
> > surname is a recent immigrant (as it happens, Sidarth, unlike George
> > Allen, was born in Virginia).
> >
> > It's hardly a news flash that Republicans in Virginia and elsewhere have
a
> > weakness for immigrant-bashing, particularly racially-tinged
> > immigrant-bashing. But on a day when the Washington Post reports a new
> > study showing that more than one million immigrants now live in the
> > Washington, DC, metro area--with probably half of them, roughly, living
in
> > Virginia--Allen's casual immigrant-baiting can be viewed as either
> > politically stupid, or as reflecting a calculation that anti-immigrant
> > sentiment in the Old Dominion is sufficiently powerful to run the risk
of
> > alienating a growing voter bloc.
> >
> > In any event, you don't have to have any particular prejudice against
> > George Allen to be skeptical of his claim that he pulled the word
"macaca"
> > out of thin air. There's a long and disreputable European-American
> > tradition of associating immigrants with "monkeys," and
it's not limited
> > to people of color. Anyone familiar with the work of Thomas Nast, the
> > godfather of American political cartoonists, knows that he routinely
> > caricatured Irish-Americans as having distinctly simian features.  It's
a
> > classic dehumanizing tactic.
> >
> > The funniest aspect of this incident is the argument by some of Allen's
> > flacks that their man was trying to say "mohawk," which
is what the
> > campaign called Sidarth because of his hair style.  Sidarth replied that
> > his hairstyle was actually a mullet.
> >
> > Well, I suppose "macaca" and "mohawk" are
similar words, sorta like
> > "baboon" and "bouffant" are similar.  But
Lord 'amighty, how can anyone
> > confuse a mohawk hairstyle with a mullet?  And moreover, how can anyone
> > look at a man with a mullet and think of him as anything other than
> > uniquely American?  I guarantee you there are a lot more people in rural
> > Virginia sporting mullets than those who share George Allen' upbringing
in
> > Southern California in a Frenchified chateau, where monkeys and
immigrants
> > alike may well have been known as "macaques."
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>

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