Cackalacky (1972), "Calinky" (1974)

Bonnie Taylor-Blake taylor-blake at NC.RR.COM
Sat Aug 16 19:06:19 UTC 2008


Previously, I hadn't found "Cackalacky" or its variants, all slang terms for
"Carolina," in anything published or printed before 1991 ("North Cak-a-laka"
appears in the lyrics of a song by A Tribe Called Quest).

But now I find that "Cackalacky" appears in Kathleen Kimball's play "The
Meat Rack," published in May 1972.

----------------------------

Pg. 19:

ANGEL 2:  [...] where d your people come from?

SADIE:  charleston i think

ANGEL 2:  south cackalacky!  yeyas!  [...]

[From _Scripts 7_ (New York:  New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater,
1972; pp. 5-28).]

----------------------------

In 1972, Kimball was living in Asheville, North Carolina.


"Calinky," a form Grant Barrett mentioned in 2002, appears in James
Michener's _Centennial_ (London:  Secker & Warburg, 1974).

>From Chapter 8, "The Cowboys,"

Pg. 448:

'M'name's Coker,' the young man said, 'Who's boss?'
'I am,' Poteet said, 'Where you from?'
'South Calinky,' the stranger said with obvious defiance, and when Poteet
heard this pronunciation for South Carolina, the first state to secede from
the Union and foremost in heroic actions, he paid attention.

Pg. 493:

'Lotsa men with one arm make it,' Coker said.  'You disqualify all the men
with one arm or one leg, hell, you have to thrown out half the men in South
Calinky.  We had a bad war.'

("North Calinky," used by the same character, appears on pages 487 and 488.)

-- Bonnie

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