Of Decals, Would-Be Napoleons, And Other Cockamamie Stuff

I admit, beer was involved. Which may be the reason I forget the exact context (though I'm pretty sure the word wasn't directed at me or one of my pontifications), but the other night while socializing with a friend, said friend used the word "cockamamie." Naturally, even without the company of my good friend and the fine product of the Guinness company, just the appearance of such a rich word immediately bumped that conversation into Top Ten status (yes, I keep tabs) for the calendar year that is quickly evaporating.

Now obviously I was aware that the word means "nonsense, ridiculous, pointless, etc.," but of course I was instantly intrigued with where and how such a goofy word came from and into being. As usual, I soon found out I didn't know as much as I thought did: I thought the word was actually cockamanie, figuring it was shorthand for a crazy, probably headless, chicken running amok--ridiculous to the extreme, right? Wrong. It's cockamamie. Getting warmed up to this game of figuring out where words come from, I thought maybe the word was a recent invention, from the 1950s, and had something to do with, "That's a crazy idea, Hugh, you might as well propose punching the First Lady. Cock-a-Mamie, I say." Surprisingly, wrong again.

Here's where it really gets, well, cockamamiacal. Believe it or not, there is a word "decalcomania," which, though seeming to mean a shared obsession with stickers, actually is the "art or process of transferring pictures or designs from specially prepared paper to wood, metal, glass, etc." (that etc. no doubt includes, mainly methinks, skin, which accounts for those great lick-on tattoos, the kind that got me into trouble with a nun in sixth grade when, after applying one, I was pulled aside by said nun and told that I was hanging around the wrong kids). So, in case you were wondering, that's where the word "decal" comes from, which is an easier, though very less poetic, word for cockamamie, which originally meant a "paper strip with an image which could be transferred to skin when moistened" (moist, of course, being a five-star word in itself). Somehow, wordsmiths believe, in America during the 1940s (not too far from the Ike & Mamie 1950s), decalcomania/cockamamie got thrown in a blender with such expressions as cock-and-bull and poppycock, and voila, cockamamie, in its present sense of nonsense, was born. So there you go: Next time somebody accuses you or your ideas as cockamamie, just respond, "No, my ideas and I have absolutely nothing to do with transferring images from paper onto wood, metal, glass, or skin," and walk away in a self-satisfied huff. That'll fix 'em.

Or, better yet, for the sin of using the word cockamamie with no knowledge of its artistic, sticky origins, accuse the person of being a cockalorum (yes, my friends, when looking up one word in your dictionary, make sure you take in the surrounding neighborhood). "Cockalorum" means "a self-important little man," or in general, "bragging talk or crowing." Which, obviously, leads to the possibilty of using what might just end up being my "newly discovered sentence of the year" (yes, I keep tabs)--"Oh, stop all your cockalorum you cockalorum!" Fling that just once at somebody and see if it doesn't become a habit.

All of which leads us, naturally, to Frank Sinatra. Frank, I think the jury's in on this, was a rather self-important and, at 5 feet 7.5 inches tall (sic), little man. But I'm not here to accuse the dead of being a cockalorum. No, more interestingly, in the early 1960s I believe, Warner Bros. Records, to appease Sinatra (I bet that was a long line back in the day) pretty much created the Reprise Records label for Frank. Although it would be fascinating to believe, it doesn't seem that Frank had much input on the artists who wound up on Reprise. Case in point, the great Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, who, in 1970, released on Reprise a great album titled Lick My Decals Off, Baby, the titular song being a sort of anti-Beatles, anti-innocent love song with its memorable opening line, "Rather than 'I wanna hold your hand,' I wanna swallow you whole ... " and proceeds to raunchier, though more philosophical, heights. I guess that if the Captain had known, the song/album might have been Lick My Cockamamies Off, Baby, which would have been quite interesting. Finally to show how much the world has changed in 40 years, it seems Reprise even produced a one minute commercial for the album. Remember, this was before cable TV and the Internet, so I imagine this was an actual network TV commercial. Cockamamie, indeed.