Cardistry is a 90-year-old term for MAGIC with cards, that Richard decided he liked the sound of, and decided to apply the same definition as XCM.
Okay let me hit this one off first. This is one of those things that people believe just because they're told. Trashmanf had never heard of "cardistry" before he heard this fact. So it's just hearsay for him.
When I thought "cadistry" would be a good term for this art, I'll be honest -- I had NEVER heard of this term being described for magic. Neither had anybody on Decknique. In fact, nobody brought it up until one person did months later. When I told the theory11 crew about Decknique, NOBODY brought up that it was a magic term. A crew including Chris Kenner, Lee Asher, Aaron Fisher? Seems like, although a few people may have used cardistry to describe magic in the past, it NEVER caught on. And so it is NOT really considered a word to describe magic. One person has recently used the word "cardistry" in their magic book, but this is the first time in how long, and was done a year after Decknique introduced the term for the non-magical art.
It is absolutely wrong to think that cardistry means cuts and XCM means no cuts. This is not the intended purpose of EITHER of the terms! Anybody who tells you such does not know what they are talking about and are simply guessing.
Cardistry and XCM in fact intend to essentially describe the same art: the non-magical, artistic manipulation of playing cards.
The reason most people link XCM to no cuts and Cardistry to cuts is simply which camps have used which terminology to define the art. De'vo has an absolute policy to use XCM on his products and boards, and requires anybody who posts on his forums to use the XCM term as well (last time I saw). So when people see XCM, they think of De'vo.
The term "cardistry" was introduced on Decknique, the largest "non-magical, artistic playing card manipulation" community until it joined with theory11. And now theory11 adopts the term along with "flourishes" to describe the art as well.
The subject of these terminologies is something I've dealt with ever since their inceptions. I was around during and before these events took place and was very "into the scene."
This art is very new and so up until 4 years ago it was using an out-dated term ("flourishing"). And so the efforts to define this art and help to grow it are all fresh and young.
I'm going to have a write up about this later.... but generally I can't talk about this subject without going on and on and on...