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[bethellison AT netscape.net (Beth)]

I am and always have been utterly repulsed by "Cackalacky". I'm from NC 
originally and that word never ceases to make me cringe. It's too Hee Haw. 
It's too cutesy country. It's like colonial bluepaint/pineapple decor. It's 
something you see cross-stitched on a pillow and sold for $10 in some 
catalog, right next to the t-shirts that say "Because I'm the mom. THAT'S 
why."

I went to London once with a group of people from NC. We went to visit 
Kensington Palace and one of the guys in our group walked up to a palace 
employee and said, "Hey! I'm Duncan and I'm from North Cackalacky! Where do 
the tourists go in?!" I wanted to kick him dead, I was so mortified.

Just saying.

Beth

Ken VanDine <ken AT biZrace.com> wrote:

>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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