Carolina as Cackalacky, Cackalacka, Calinky, Calink, or Cack

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Charlie and I’m calling from Columbia, South Carolina.

Hey, Charlie, welcome. What can we do for you?

Well, there’s an expression I heard a few years back and I’ve heard it a few times since then. I’m very curious about it. In reference to South Carolina, I’ve heard it called South CAC. And I’m curious about where that comes from.

South CAC. And in what context did you hear that?

The first time I heard it was when longtime NBA all-star Kevin Garnett finally won a championship, and he was being interviewed, and he was shouting out to different individuals and places. And he’s from South Carolina, so he gave a shout-out to South CAC.

Huh. And that sounds very positive then. Like, he was proud of being from South CAC.

Very much so. I’m not at all sure that he was the first one to say it, but he’s the first person I heard use that.

Yeah, and you know what’s funny is I think you’re really representative. Every time this has been looked into, usually with informal surveys, particularly there were some in the early 2000s, a lot of people who live in the Carolinas, that’s North and South Carolina, say they never heard it, where some people say, yeah, of course I’ve heard it. I’ve known it all my life. And it’s just one of those strange things.

And it’s not just cack, but it’s cackalacky and probably a dozen or more variations of it. Cackalacky, cackalacka.

Is there a north cack?

Yeah, there’s a north cack and a south cack and kalinky as well. And North Carolina sometimes is called north no cack or north click.

Nice. Interesting.

Yeah, cackalacky, kalink, kalinky, all of these. And the history of this is really interesting in that we can’t find the roots of it. It does seem to be primarily oral. That is, it’s something that was said long before it ever showed up in print. So it’s old.

We find it in a play by Kathleen Kimball, who was a playwright living in North Carolina. She included it in a play in 1972. But the language historian Bonnie Taylor Blake found a tantalizing possible use of Kalinke in the 1930s. And I say tantalizing because it’s not clear at all what they meant in this very short phrase.

And the phrase is, the mighty bear hunters have returned from North Kalinke without bear. Bear, and it’s abbreviated bear where the E is left out and it’s just a B apostrophe A-R. But the reason it’s confusing is there’s a comma between North and Kalinke. Nobody knows why. Is it just a mistake? Is it supposed to be there? Why? And it’s from like 1936. And that could be the thing, but we don’t know for sure.

In any case, what happened was in the 1990s was a resurgence of this being used in hip-hop. So that might explain why Kevin Arnett was using it. You know, I mentioned those surveys earlier that were from the early 2000s. Now, then we did a lot of people in the Carolinas say that they didn’t know the term. But among those who said they knew the term, they said they remembered it from the 50s and 60s. And they thought it might be a little derogatory or that it was only used by out-of-staters, people who weren’t from there. And it looks like the 90s use of it in hip-hop has turned that around. And now it’s more claimed by people from the Carolinas, and it’s more positive now.

Wow, I had no idea. Now, as to where it comes from, most people agree it’s just a way to spell it. There’s one theory that it’s from a Cherokee word. There’s one theory that it comes from the German word for cockroach. Another word that it’s from a name of a traditional Scottish soup. There’s one that’s from a humorous pronunciation of Cadillac, but all of these lack supporting information. They’re just strictly based upon pronunciation alone without any supporting data.

And so I really just think it’s a hilarious, it’s somebody’s humorous idea of a pronunciation of Catalana. That’s what I’m thinking. It’s like coinkydink, you know, for coincidence. There’s just somebody saying Catalina in a really exaggerated way, and it just kind of took off from there.

I noticed it has the same intonation pattern as Carolina.

Yeah, absolutely. Excellent.

All right, take care.

All right. Take care. Be well. Bye.

We have a ton of listeners in South Carolina and North Carolina, and we would love to hear their take on, do you consider this derogatory? Do you have home state pride for this term, referring to the Carolinas? Which variant do you use? And how far back do you remember using it? Let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell us in email, words@waywordradio.org.