[Ads-l] Cacaklacky

[Rich Lowenthal]

>From the 2007 article "Dunbar Lives!" by poet (and Mellon Foundation 
president) Elizabeth Alexander, in the context of various vernaculars:

"...my father's magnificent Harlem vernacular; the Yiddish inflections 
and improvisational suffix-ing and wry humor of my parents' Jewish New 
York City schoolteachers; and then, oh how can I forget, the fluent 
Cackalacka spoken on the streets and front stoops of the Washington, DC, 
where I was reared in its eternal springtime?"

(African American Review, Summer, 2007, p. 395)


------ Original Message ------
>From "Jonathan Lighter" 
<00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date 10/10/2026 1:41:00 PM
Subject Re: Cacaklacky

>Jonathan Lighter
>
>This went to Rich but was meant for everyone:
>
>If I had to guess, I'd guess that it owes its sound mostly to the WWII
>fad term "khaki-wacky."
>
>Which isn't to say it's "derived from" khaki-wacky, or that
>"Cackalacky" meaning Carolina was uttered by any detectable number of
>humans before ca 1970 - or by many before the '90s.
>
>JL
>
>
>From
>
>To
>
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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