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[Paul Jones <pjones AT metalab.unc.edu>]

A while back this list and Tom Beckett in particular was asked about the 
origin of cackalacky (or cackalack or cackalackie). There is a lack of 
knowledge of cackalacky, a sort of cackalack black hole.
TheState.com which calls itself South Carolina's Home Page while being 
hosted at a URL of www.duluthsuperior.com reported on July 30:

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/state/2003/08/06/business/6415688.htm

Posted on Wed, Jul. 30, 2003

'Cackalacky' trackers lack clues to its origin
   By CLARE RAMSEY
  Staff Writer
 
Page Skelton named his hot sauce Cackalacky because it is made in the 
Carolinas.

How that word came to represent the region has stumped Skelton and 
scholars alike.

"All we can do is guess," said Connie Eble, an English professor at 
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Despite its old-timey sound, Cackalacky has been popping up in some modern 
places: hip-hop songs, Internet chats, local radio stations, Midlands-made 
T-shirts, as well as Skelton's Chapel Hill hot sauce.

"This seems to be a word that has come into its own recently," said Eble, 
who studies contemporary American English vernacular, or our everyday 
speech.

Why Cackalacky is catching on is as much of a mystery as its roots, Eble 
said.

The word has no standard spelling or official origin, but a lot of people 
use it and pronounce it the same way.

Cackalacky is a slang term for the Carolinas, sometimes following "North" 
or "South."

For example, one might say, "I'm from way down in North Cackalacky," or 
"My family lives in South Cackalacky."

And while there are lifelong Carolinians who can't recall having heard the 
term, others say it is as common as sweet tea, boiled peanuts and 
barbecue.

Cackalacky's users defy class, race, age and geography classifications. 
Black, white. Old and young. Carolinians and out-of-staters. All kinds of 
people say they drop the name now and then.

Hot sauce maker Skelton said Carolinians either get excited by the sauce's 
name or are puzzled because they've never heard it before.

"People who know the word laugh, 'Oh my God! I can't believe you got the 
rights to that!' If they've never heard it, they almost act offended that 
you've discovered something they should know," he said.

For some in the Midlands, the word Cackalacky brings back memories of 
home.

Charlie Gwinn, 49, of Columbia, recalls hearing Cackalacky used in casual 
conversations while he was growing up in Laurens in the Upstate.

"I know I heard my dad use it, just kidding around or as a slang 
expression," he said. "I think it was just one of those things growing up 
in the Carolinas. It wasn't common. It wasn't something you'd hear every 
day."

But younger Carolinians are hearing it nearly every day, whether in 
hip-hop songs, in promos on local radio stations or while hanging out with 
peers.

Stephanie McMillan, 18, of Sumter, said she hears it a lot on local radio 
station the Big DM, 101.3 FM. And her friends say Cackalacky all the time, 
mostly as a term of endearment or pride for their state.

For instance, if her cheerleading squad traveled out of state for 
basketball, they might say, "We're from South Cackalacky," McMillan said.

Others from beyond the Cackalacky borders said they've heard the name used 
for decades.

Skelton, 35, heard it as a child growing up in Missouri. "Obviously, the 
term had made it that far west."

Jill Sahl, a library assistant at UNC's North Carolina Collection, heard 
the term growing up in Northern Virginia in the late '60s and early 1970s. 
Her family used it jokingly, saying things like, "Oh no! You've got to go 
through North Cackalacky on your vacation!"

Eble said native Carolinians also use the word in a similar way.

"What people have told me is that it sort of emphasizes the rural quality. 
It's self-deprecating, but in a way that shows their pride," she said.

For example, she said, one might say, "Pottery Barn? This is North 
Cackalacky. We don't have Pottery Barn!"

SEEKING CACKALACKY

Eble started looking into the word this spring after librarians at UNC's 
North Carolina Collection passed on a query about it.

She has lived in North Cackalacky for more than 30 years, but it was the 
first time she had heard Cackalacky. So she began asking colleagues, 
students and friends about the word. So far, she has not found an origin 
or written citation.

Citations can come from such places as song lyrics, old letters, books or 
maps. Lexicographers (the people who write dictionaries) use citations in 
deciding whether a word makes their official lists.

Cackalacky, Eble said, has been elusive.

"You can say that right now dictionary makers are perplexed because they 
don't have a normal record of this through the normal sources that make it 
to the dictionary."

A version of the word has shown up in the Midlands on T-shirts, hats and 
other items made by Columbia-based Cackalak Clothing Company. The owners 
of the company declined to comment for this story.

Other S.C. calls yielded no leads: Librarians and archivists at the Penn 
Center in St. Helena Island, Richland County Public Library's state 
archive room and the Avery Center in Charleston said they hadn't seen the 
term. Michael Montgomery, a retired USC professor of English and 
linguistics, hadn't heard it. Nor had S.C. expert Walter Edgar, according 
to the historian's staff at USC.

The Dictionary of American Regional English, a publication from Madison, 
Wis., offered no clues, not even an entry for Cackalacky.

That project documents words, phrases and pronunciations that are part of 
how we speak, rather than how we should speak.

Chief editor Joan H. Hall first heard Cackalacky this spring after Eble 
asked about it. It's now on her radar, she said.

Folks in Cackalacky aren't alone, she said. Other regions have similar 
nicknames for specific geographic areas.

"That's the kind of thing people like to play with because they are saying 
something about the people who live there," Hall said.

So there might be no documented origin for the unofficial nickname for the 
Carolinas. (The official nicknames, of course, are the Palmetto State for 
South Carolina and Tar Heel State for North Carolina.)

TAKING GUESSES

That doesn't mean there aren't theories.

Skelton's best guess is that it could be a mutation of two words from the 
states' early residents: Tsalaki (pronounced cha-lak-ee), the Cherokee way 
to say Cherokee, and cocklaleekie, a traditional Scottish soup. That's 
just a hunch; he hasn't found evidence to substantiate it.

Eble has been looking into the words for a few months. One theory she 
heard was that it could have stemmed from the military presence in the 
Carolinas, as a way for out-of-state servicemen to describe the region. As 
in, "I'm being sent to Cackalacky."

Sahl of the North Carolina Collection said staff members there have 
another theory that the term was spread through East Coast fishermen, who 
would have to go to the waters of Cackalacky from time to time to chase 
their catches.

"Most of us here feel it's something that came from out of state," she 
said.

Once lexicographers tune in to a word like Cackalacky, they often can 
uncover the origin.

"It's not impossible," Eble said. "The people who make dictionaries are 
very sensitive to new words. They just have remarkable antennae."

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                             Paul Jones
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