A strange word, or rather two strange words. The first is encountered only in the phrase court of cassation, referring to a French supreme court of appeal, and it’s pretty straightforward: it’s from Latin cassāre ‘to bring to nought, annul’ (: cassus empty, void), also the source of the verb quash, and such a court quashes decisions of other courts. The other word refers to ‘a piece of instrumental music of the eighteenth century similar to the serenade, and often performed out of doors’ (OED), and it can be traced back only to Italian cassazione. Willy Apel’s Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music says “The name may be derived from It. cassare, to say farewell, or from L. gassatim, streetlike,” but my Italian and Late Latin books know no such words. And yet it has such an open, transparent look: what, me obscure? And such a useless word, too, given the equivalent divertimento. But I like it. There’s something so old-fashioned and Old World about it.
From Devoto-Oli, Dizionario della Lingua Italiana: “Cassazione = Composizione strumentale simile alla serenata e al divertiment, diffusa in Germania nel tardo Settecento. Forse dal tedesco ‘gassen’ ‘vagabondare per la strada.'”
I had an argument with another Russian speaker a few years ago over whether raskassirovat’ (as in raskassirovat’ polk, to disband a regiment) is derived from caisser or its Latin predecessor, or from its (alleged) typographic meaning — rassypat’ kassu, to spill type from a case. I supported the caisser theory, and I think so do etymological authorities.
From The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians:
I just ran across the word cassation and was going to research it, but it occurred to me I might have posted about it, and so I did, fifteen years ago. LH is serving as my external memory.
gassatim is clearly a pun on Latin words like verbatim and the German Gasse for a small street.
Specifically on Gassi gehen. This is “take the dog on a walk”, namely so that it can have a pee (in the gutter). You say to the dog sollen wir jetzt Gassi gehen?
Most likely.
Well, *I* say it to the dog for sure.
[This is not paralipsis, but what is it called ? “Look, a squirrel!” is similar. Pretending to get the wrong end of the stick in all innocence.]