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[Ken VanDine <ken AT biZrace.com>]

Interesting article whice still leaves the mystery.  It is kind of funny
to think about it.  I remember using the term as a kid growing up on the
Outer Banks.  But, I do not have a clue where I heard it, and I don't
remember anyone telling me what it meant... I must have just known.

--Ken


On Sat, 2003-08-09 at 22:12, Paul Jones wrote:
> 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."
> 
> ==========================================================================
>                              Paul Jones
>  "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray
>                     http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/
>   pjones AT ibiblio.org   voice: (919) 962-7600     fax: (919) 962-8071
> ===========================================================================
> 
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