The word "Due" read from top-down and "South" left-right, with the U shared between them. Reminiscent of a compass.

Due South

Two decades later, a ground-breaking book on Ocracoke accents gets a follow-up

By Leoneda Inge,

Published June 12, 2025 at 5:05 PM EDT

This time, the authors were joined by a fourth-generation Ocracoke resident and another language expert to take an even deeper dive on the culture and evolution of the accent.

Guests:
Jeffrey Reaser is an English professor at North Carolina State University.

Walt Wolfram is a William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of English at NCSU.

They co-authored the book Talkin’ Tar Heel.

At the end of the first segment is a short clip of the song "." It's about . On the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album __, which you can listen to here.

Due South

Leoneda Inge

Leoneda Inge is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Leoneda has been a radio journalist for more than 30 years, spending most of her career at WUNC as the Race and Southern Culture reporter. Leoneda’s work includes stories of race, slavery, memory and monuments. She has won "Gracie" awards, an Alfred I. duPont Award and several awards from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association (RTDNA). In 2017, Leoneda was named "Journalist of Distinction" by the National Association of Black Journalists.

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Cole del Charco

Cole del Charco is an audio producer and writer based in Durham. He's made stories for public radio's All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Marketplace. Before joining Due South, he spent time as a freelance journalist, an education and daily news reporter for WUNC, and a podcast producer for WFAE in Charlotte.

See stories by Cole del Charco