Meaning & Analysis
To go completely crooked or awry. 'Cam' is an archaic word for crooked or bent, and 'clean' serves as an intensifier meaning 'entirely' or 'wholly'.
Insights
Willful Contrarianism
The phrase describes a state of being fundamentally disordered or acting in a manner that is deliberately contrary to logic, expectation, or the natural way of things.
Fundamental Error
It signifies a complete misunderstanding or error, where an action or argument is not just slightly off but entirely wrong or moving in the opposite direction of what is correct.
Pervasive Disorder
On a larger scale, as in 'The world goes clean cam', it expresses a sense of systemic chaos or a feeling that society or reality itself is operating illogically or perversely.
Linguistic and Conceptual Origins
The proverb's core, 'cam' (from a Celtic root meaning 'crooked'), illustrates the common linguistic leap from physical crookedness to moral or logical perversity. Its use in Early Modern English, particularly with 'clean' as an intensifier for 'completely', reflects a vibrant, evolving vernacular.
Literary and Social Context
Shakespeare's use in 'Coriolanus' ('This is clean kam' / 'Merely awry') provides a definitive gloss, showcasing the proverb as a colloquial expression for dismissing an argument as illogical or perverse. It captures the friction between established order and willful contrarianism.
Psychological Resonance
The proverb articulates the psychological frustration experienced when logic and convention are defied. It speaks to a fundamental human desire for order and the disquiet felt when things are 'clean kam'—utterly contrary to expectation.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The proverb is built on the metaphor of physical crookedness ('cam') to represent abstract concepts like error, illogic, and contrariness.
Archaism
The use of 'cam' is an archaism, a word that has fallen out of common usage, which firmly roots the proverb in its historical period.
Intensifier
The adverb 'clean' is used as an intensifier to mean 'completely' or 'utterly', a common linguistic feature of Early Modern English that adds emphasis and idiomatic flavor.
Transcription
Quotations
Let us see that . . we keep them companie our selues, to say, walk on, behauue your selues manfully: and go cleane kam our selues like breuises.
To doe a thing cleane kamme, out of order, the wrong way.
Contrariwise, cleane kamme, or against the haire.
You goe clean cam, the clean contrary way.
The world goes clean cam.
Here they go quite Kam, and act clean contrary to others.
Shakespeare Citations
This is clean kam. —Merely awry.
Cross References
Annotations
- awry
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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