My wonderful vacations at Ocracoke fishing with my girlfriends are what prompted me to pick up this book. I have always wanted to know more about this unique, beautiful island. I will never forget what a treat it was to get to this remote island retreat and stay there with no commercial buildings - no McDonalds, Dollar General or Walmart - just local businesses and restaurants with the owners who lived there on the island. If you ever get a chance to go - take it. It is an unforgettable place.

This book provides a great deal of information about the island and its history. The focus is really on the language and dialects that are unique to the island. It was fascinating to read about how the island got its name and the local sayings. One of the features I enjoyed most were going to the webpages give n in the book where I could hear the people speak and hear their conversation as they describe the island and in their unique brogue. I realized that on my trips to the island I had not heard many of these terms and I'm not sure I got exposure to a lot of that language. Next time I visit I will be sure to listen more closely.

The book is written in a conversational tone that is easy to read and absorb.There are some photos as well that help capture some of the sights. I enjoyed the book immensely and I will always cherish my memories of Ocracoke.

Thanks to the University of North Carolina Press through Netgalley for an advance copy.

An excellent resource for anyone interested in the Ocracoke brogue, and somewhat more broadly the history and current life of the island. My only caveat is that any freaks out there who, like me, went back and read Walt Wolfram's previous book on the Ocracoke brogue beforehand ([book:Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue|368568]; or the corresponding chapter in [book:Talkin' Tar Heel: How Our Voices Tell the Story of North Carolina|18640639] will find that the majority of the linguistics content of this book is just a re-hash of that older work, with appropriate updates here and there to reflect the last couple of decades of development (such as, where <i>Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks</i> mentions the emerging slang word "touron" -- a portmanteau of tourist and moron -- among the island's youth to refer to off-islanders, this latest book says something along the lines of "For a brief period in the early 2000s it looked like 'touron' was possibly displacing 'dingbatter' to refer to visitors from the mainland, but that usage died away and 'dingbatter' remains the word of choice"). In addition to those updates, there's enough added color talking about life on the island that it makes the book worth reading even for sickos who dipped into Wolfram's back catalog first; for anyone else, this is a great first port of call to learn about Ocracoke and its dialect.

Synopsis: Okracoke, a small island accessible only by ferry on the coast of North Carolina, retains a unique brogue that fascinates linguists. When researching from NC State began exploring the island's history and dialect, they became enchanted by the culture of this little coastal community.

Why does this book beguile? Right out of the gate, I'll admit that Language and Life on Okracoke is a super niche book. If you’re reading this book, you’re likely a linguistic nerd or a fan of the Outer Banks of North Carolina (no, not the show - don’t even get me started on that garbage representation of my community). Luckily, I’m in the center of that Venn diagram. This is an interesting book detailing the history and present-day experience of residents of Okracoke Island. There are fascinating tidbits throughout and I learned a lot - about the brogue of Okracoke and my own speech habits I learned growing up on the Outer Banks.