Cacaphony

Yesterday's post on the various iterations of the word CACO of course got me thinking.  I mean, any word that has that as an element would have to be related, no?

First the background.  As a Latin word for excrement caco goes back to the Greek kaka.  The Romans borrowed much from the older civilization.

Cacophony in its current usage just means loud and discordant.  Annoying maybe.  Many years ago we had a teenage garage band on our block and that pretty much defines the word.

Phony of course means sound in this context.  And the caca part?  Well somewhere between the earthier Greek and Roman versions it meandered through French and just came to mean "bad or evil".  A fair description of most garage bands although when Kenny the drummer with bright red hair down to his waist really got going the execrable version of the root word would not be out of place.

Oddly the term phony in the sense of something fake has an entirely different etymology.

Note, the photo below is not Kenny and his mates.  You google up Worst Garage Band ever and horizons open up for you....