It’s a Thanksgiving staple. It’s a healthy snack. It’s the source of great linguistic debate. We’re talking pecans.

Did you read that as puh-KAHNs or PEE-cans? If you read “PEE-can,” you line up with ~45% of southerns and nearly 70% of northerners according to a poll by the National Pecan Shellers Association. Pronunciation is often attributed to region, with many believing dialect affects how people pronounce words like pecan, caramel, or mayonnaise.

There are some studies that justify that claim, but many others think it’s nuts. Get it? Some people, like Josh Katz — an N.C. State doctoral student of linguisitcs + author of “Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk,” — think you’ll hear both pronunciations in any state, and that the difference depends more on a rural vs. urban background.

Dialect map of the word "pecan" | Josh Katz

To make the debate stickier than the Karo Syrup in your pecan pie, some people claim the pronunciation of the word pecan depends on how you’re using it. In other words, when you say “pecan pie, praline pecan, and pecan” — does your pronunciation of “pecan” change each time? Or remain the same?

While puh-KAHN and PEE-can are the two most common — there are actually six widely used pronunciations of the word pecan:

○ puh-KAHN
○ puh-CAN
○ PEE-can
○ PEE-kahn
○ pee-KAHN
○ pee-CAN

We may never agree, but one thing’s for sure – the southern nut makes for a great dessert (especially around the holiday season). Here are a few local spots celebrating the pecan and all it has to offer:

If you want to try your hand at making a pecan pie, check out this recipe from N.C. food writer Elena Brent Rosemund-Hoerr. Want to learn more about where you’d land on a dialect map? Check out this quiz.

Poll

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