Every now and then I hear someone say, when describing a situation that is totally out of control, that is has "gone all cattywumpus," although I can't confirm the spelling.

Notions on correct spelling (a rarity in such terms, I understand) and, more importantly, where the cat who wumps comes from?

Hyla

i've never heard cattywumpus--maybe cat-a-wumpus... and as for origins don't know, except for maybe from the Hunt the wumpus --a early (about 1st pacman) computer game.. actually earlier since some versions are not GUI.

Hi and welcome to the madhouse!

You will soon see we have spawned a few acronyms here, one of which is a self-help support: YCLIU, standing for you can look it up. I did that using google, specifying <catawampus+etymology>, and got this:

http://www.shu.ac.uk/web-admin/phrases/bulletin_board/3/messages/486.html

What do you think?

this is an interesting word, which probably gets different treatment from different resources. W3 gives cattywampus as a variant of catawamp[o]us, which in turn has two listings. the first is marked "dial. an imaginary fierce wild animal", probably an alteration of catamount. the second is your adjective, given as "1) fierce, savage 2) askew, awry, cater-cornered", probably by folk etymology [misapprehension] from catercorner. I'll check OED too, unless someone else has it.

p.s. - this also merits YART status (yet another rehashed topic)
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=3495

Welcome Hyla,
I've heard catawampus used by Old Timers meaning a fierce wild animal ... sometimes used to describe a man who has had a bit too much alcoholic intake!
The word is more often heard, around here anyway, in more rural locations.

WOW