A neat article in the October 2026 Our State magazine on North Carolina dialects. Excerpts:

[Walt] Wolfram can often tell where in the state a person is from just by hearing them talk. In the Coastal Plain, you throw your luggage in the boot of the car, a term that is also heard in England, but developed independently here. In the western part of the state, folks go a-huntin’ and a-fishin’ — another holdover from Ireland and England, where people used to say they were “at hunting” or “on fishing.” The Hoi Toide vowel pronunciation of the Outer Banks came down from the Chesapeake Bay area when many people migrated south by boat around the turn of the 18th century.

In Appalachia, folks drink dope instead of soda, or, as older generations in the state say, Co’ Cola. If something is crooked, they call it sigogglin’. On the Outer Banks, something that’s crooked is cattywampus or whopperjawed …

Older folks mash buttons. Younger folks push them …

In rural areas, parents carry their kids to the movies. Before bed, they cut off the lights. City folk take their kids to the movies and turn off the lights. People move to North Carolina’s cities from everywhere, and their dialects influence how people speak here. “The chasm between urban and rural in North Carolina,” Wolfram says, “is greater than the difference between Northern and Southern speech at this point.”

When my brother and I were kids visiting our grandparents, my grandfather would always ask, “Y’all want a Co’Cola?” even though all he ever served in the house were Pepsi and Mountain Dew.

Liz and I use cattywampus to describe a SNAFU of any kind; it’s just such a good word for that. And I think I will always say “mash the Esc key” even though I’d write “press the Esc key.”