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I was always under the impression that was a similar expression to 'dog-eared', i.e. a bit beaten up. But maybe I'm conflating it with another phrase
Dog-eared means that a corner got folded down (making a diagonal) on a page as a bookmark. A dog-eared book isn't necessarily beat-up beyond the damage to the corners of pages. Catty-cornered or kitty-cornered is adjacent to something on the diagonal, i.e. not orthogonally next to it like up, down, left, or right. So there is an argument to be made for a loose (coincidental) connection between those ideas, but I don't think they come from the same roots.
I'm my area it's said "caddy corner", or you might hear the random old euphemistic "caddy-wampus" which means either "diagonal to reference position" or "all fucked up!"