Cackalacka, Cackalacky, and variants [long]

[Peter A. McGraw]

Yeah--"Kakerlake" was what first came to mind the first time I saw that
subject line, and when I read the message I thought, "What an odd nickname
to give one's state!"

Only on reading Gerald's message did the second thought occur to me that
"Cackalacka" is probably pronounced with [ae] in the stressed syllables
rather than [a], which makes it sound considerably less like the German.
So I wonder if the resemblance could be purely coincidental after all.

Peter Mc.

--On Friday, July 08, 2005 12:04 PM -0500 "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"
<gcohen at UMR.EDU> wrote:

> German presents a word that sounds almost the same as Cackalacka, viz.
> "Kakerlake" (= cockroach).  Moreover, to German ears the "Cacka-" part of
> "Cackalacka" sounds almost identical to the German word "Kacke"
> (excrement; not quite as offensive a term as Scheiße).
>
>    So what's going on?  My guess is that an American who spent some time
> in Germany, say a serviceman, picked up the terms Kakerlake and Kacke and
> then applied them to North/South Carolina, since "Carolina" starts with
> the same "Ca-" sound. Whoever did this must have had some unpleasant
> thoughts about those two fine states.  Carolinians, almost universally
> unaware of the German word "Kakerlake," then evidently accepted the term
> as a poetically folksy variant of "Carolina" and even "folksified" it
> further to "Cackerlacky."  The spelling of course was also altered.
>
>      Some people get their jollies by slipping something off-color or
> derogatory by an unsupecting public.  It's possible that Cackerlacka for
> "Carolina" is one more example of this.
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
>> ----------
>         Original message, July 6, 2005, from: Bonnie Taylor-Blake
>> For the past two or three years, there's been some interest at the
>> University of North Carolina in tracking down the origin and early uses
>> of "Cackalacky" and "Cackalacka," slang terms of somewhat indeterminate
>> age for "Carolina."
>>
>> The term, and it's important to note that it appears in many forms [1],
>> is used with regard to both North and South Carolinas.  And while the
>> use of "Cackalacky" doesn't seem to be particularly prevalent at the
>> moment, it is gaining in popularity, which may be due in part to its use
>> in hip-hop and rap.  In fact, the earliest printed form I've managed to
>> find is this,
>>
>> ---------------------------
>         <snip>



***************************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ****************************