Let them eat cack

Wordlab notes that Marie Antoinette didn’t really invite her subjects to storm the pâtisserie. I could, however, imagine her saying “Qu’ils mangent de la caque” (cf HistoricAL), were it not that Vulgum says it was derived later, by Céline, from caquer/caguer, to shit. Cognates turn up in other Romance dialects, as do they in Dutch. I think this is probably actually why cack-handed means left-handed, the left being the hand mostly employed in historical rearguard actions for reasons of hygiene. There’s another Dutch expression, iemand de schijthand geven, to give someone the shithand, but we won’t go there now.

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