Coney-catching Coney-catching Coney-catching is Elizabethan slang for theft through trickery. It comes from the word "coney" (sometimes spelled "conny"), meaning a rabbit raised for the table and thus tame. A coney-catcher was a thief or con man. It was a practice in medieval and Renaissance England in which devious people on the street would try to con or cheat vulnerable or gullible pedestrians. The term appears in "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" by William Shakespeare, and in the John Florio translation of Montaigne's essay, "Of the Cannibals." The term was first used in print by
What a Waste on both "Warts 'n' Audience" and "Straight from the Desk". Dury re-recorded the song with Curve in 1993 for the "Peace Together" album. The recording was also included on Curve's 2004 compilation album "The Way of Curve". Although the original single omits the exclamation mark, "What a Waste" is sometimes written with one, including on "Live! Warts 'n' Audience". Part of the bridge section of "What a Waste" was sampled by A Tribe Called Quest on their 1991 single "Can I Kick It?". What a Waste "What a Waste" is a song and single by Ian Dury and the Blockheads,