What’s the ‘latest scoop’ with the N.C. state ferry tolls?

How’s it going with the plan to eliminate North Carolina’s free state ferries by Jan. 1, 2027?

The General Assembly instructed the Ferry Division of the North Carolina Transportation Department (NCDOT) to start charging tolls by the first of the new year to all people who use the four “commuter ferry routes” that are currently free.

The affected ferry runs are: Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach, Aurora-Bayview, Currituck-Knotts Island and Hatteras-Ocracoke. New toll rates are yet to be determined.

State ferry division personnel conducted a series of “listening sessions” in early September. Five sessions were held to solicit comments from citizens who live in communities near the ferry terminals and those who routinely use the ferry service.

The purpose was to get their input about how much they’d be willing to “pay to play.”

Holly Jackson of the Washington (N.C.) Daily News, who covered the gathering held in Washington, encountered some frustrated Aurora-Bayview ferry riders.

 

Jackson reported that 92% of the ridership on the Aurora-Bayview ferry is composed of permanent residents, most of whom are employees commuting to the Nutrien phosphate facility in Aurora (formerly PotashCorp).

 

The decision by the state legislature in July to charge ferry tolls “was like a punch in the gut,” said John Richards of Pinetown in northern Beaufort County. He said he works for Nutrien in Aurora and commutes by way of the Aurora-Bayview ferry.

It’s a 30-minute crossing of the Pamlico River, on the “extension” of N.C. Route 306. Richards said he could “bypass” the ferry by driving around his elbow, but that would add another 40 minutes to his travel time each way.

Richards said that the ferry is one of the main primary reasons why he and several colleagues who live on the north side of the Pamlico River continue to work at Nutrien. “I would never think of going to work over there if I had to drive around every day,” he said.

State Sen. Bob Brinson of New Bern represents Beaufort, Craven and Lenoir counties. Two of the ferry routes are in his district (Aurora-Bayview and Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach). He said NCDOT intends to pool revenue generated by the ferry tolls into a fund that will be used to replace aging vessels in the fleet.

 

“There’s concern, at least from me,” Sen. Brinston told the Daily News, “that that’s not really the way replacing roads works. So why should that work for the ferries?”

State Rep. Keith Kidwell of Chocowinity, whose district includes Beaufort, Dare, Hyde and Pamlico counties, said: “By and large, the citizens of eastern North Carolina have made it clear for nearly 30 years that they do not support ferry tolls. Ferries are part of North Carolina’s highway system and should not be tolled.”

 

“A lobbyist for the tolls sat in my office in Raleigh and explained to me that the ferry system is grossly mismanaged. My question to him was: ‘So when the government mismanages something, the answer is to tax the citizens to make up for government mistakes?’”

Writing as a guest columnist for TownDock.net in Oriental, Greg Piner emphasized that N.C. Route 306, is a major thoroughfare that runs north-south through the center of Pamlico County and also includes the Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach ferry. 

N.C. Route 306 continues on to connect with N.C. Route 101 in Craven County.

 

A retired civilian chemist, Piner rode the Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach ferry for more than 30 years, going back and forth from his home in Oriental to work at Marines Corps Fleet Readiness Center East in Havelock.

 

“The State of North Carolina has some very efficient ways to raise revenue,” Piner said. “Tolling ferries is not one of them.”

He offers “a 72-cent solution.”

“All of the revenue from the tolls will go to the Ferry Capital Special Fund, solely to help fund the purchase of new ferries,” Piner said. “I have heard that the goal is to raise $5 million of gross revenue each year. Five million.”

“Collecting tolls is labor intensive and has a huge overhead. A reasonable estimate is that for every dollar you spend on a ferry toll, 50 cents goes to the cost of taking your money. That’s not just true for North Carolina, it’s that way all across the country,” Piner wrote.

“The entire North Carolina Ferry System transports around 1 million vehicles each year. Currently, the three ferry routes in North Carolina that are tolled generate about $2 million of gross revenue each year. The overhead to generate that revenue is about $1 million – half of the revenue generated.”

“The four remaining ferry routes will require millions of dollars to provide the infrastructure necessary to begin tolling vehicles,” Piner continued.

“Tolling ferries is a very, very bad way to raise revenue.”

“You might not like to pay it,” Piner said, “but the gas tax is efficient. For every dollar you pay in gasoline tax (the average driver pays around $350 a year), 95 cents goes straight to NCDOT to do the things they do.”

“One of the things they do is fund the N.C. Ferry Division. On the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers, the ferry routes are our highways. We take them to our jobs, to school, to business appointments, doctors visits, to visit family, to run errands. Now those ferry routes – our highways – are about to become toll roads.”

“Ferries are part of the highway system,” Piner argued. “For example, the Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach Ferry is a continuation of N.C. Highway 306.”

 “The gasoline tax provides NCDOT about $2.4 billion each year. The current gasoline tax is 41 cents per gallon. There are roughly 7 million people all over the state just pumping away. Every time a gallon of gas goes into their tanks, 41 cents goes to the State gas tax fund.”

“When you get all those people pumping all that gas you can generate a lot of revenue. How much revenue? One cent of gas tax generates $53 million per year,” Piner said.

“What if someone told you that if the State of North Carolina raised your gasoline tax from an average of $350.00 each year to $350.72 each year, then $5 million of revenue could be put in the North Carolina Ferry System Fund every year, and ferry tolls could be completely eliminated on all the ferries in North Carolina?”

“That would allow the Ferry System to focus on what they are trained to do: safely transport as many vehicles as possible every day across the rivers and sounds of North Carolina.”

“That is what generates real revenue, revenue for small businesses, restaurants, hotels and the thousands of local citizens that take a ferry to go to work,” Piner added.

“A simple one-tenth of a cent gas tax will generate far more revenue than a ferry toll ever could.”

 

9 N.C. coastal counties ask for ‘ferry tolls relief’

Nine coastal North Carolina counties are seeking relief from the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to waive state ferry tolls on locally registered vehicles. The new tolls are scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

A joint resolution in opposition to the tolls was approved in early September by the county governing boards in Beaufort, Brunswick, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Hyde, New Hanover and Pamlico counties.

The resolution maintains that “ferries serve as the primary, and in some cases exclusive, highways and bridges for the residents, commuters and emergency services of eastern North Carolina.”

Residents of the nine counties “rely on these state-maintained marine corridors daily to access employment, medical care, education and essential goods.”

The resolution states that “mainland residents of North Carolina enjoy free, un-tolled access to state-maintained roads, highways and bridges funded by the general tax base, to which coastal residents also contribute.”

The resolution asserts that “imposing additional transit fees on local citizens simply because they reside in a coastal region creates an unfair system of double taxation, and the financial burden of new or increased tolls will disproportionately harm local working families, small businesses and fixed-income retirees who have no viable alternative transit routes.”

The nine counties implore NCDOT to develop “a fair and equitable solution” that distinguishes between daily local commuters who utilize the ferry system as an essential highway and tourists who use the system for recreation.

The counties’ resolution strongly recommends that “any necessary state revenue adjustments focus strictly on non-resident, seasonal tourism traffic, rather than penalizing local citizens.”

Residents of Hyde County who use the Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry regularly are raising additional concerns.

Joy Crist, editor of the Island Free Press, based in Hatteras, said that Ocracoke’s long-time “resident priority boarding system needs to remain.”

This issue is a top priority for Hyde County, the Ocracoke Civic and Business Association (OCBA), and the Ocracoke Access Alliance (OAA).

Speaker after speaker at a recent community meeting “described the ferry as Ocracoke’s highway to medical care, work, school and other basic services…and warned that eliminating priority boarding could fundamentally change day-to-day life on the island.”

Mary Ellen Ballance, Dare County commissioner; Tess Judge, a member of the North Carolina Board of Transportation; Jed Dixon, Ferry Division director; and Justin LeBlanc, executive director of the Ocracoke Access Alliance.

OCBA President Bob Chestnut said a new state law requiring tolls on every North Carolina ferry route beginning Jan. 1, 2027, is especially troubling to Ocracoke residents because it does not continue the priority loading component.

Presently, businesses, vendors and residents can apply for free passes to get priority loading status for the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry route. These are decals that are placed on the driver-side windshield of a vehicle. Loading attendants direct “PRIORITY” vehicles to use “PRIORITY” lanes for boarding at both ferry terminals.

Justin LeBlanc, executive director of the OAA, said Ocracoke’s resident priority system has operated for roughly 40 years without being specifically authorized or prohibited by state law.

Crist wrote: “According to LeBlanc, NCDOT has determined that once the new tolling law takes effect, the agency will need explicit statutory authority from the General Assembly to continue the resident priority program.”

LeBlanc said: “The only way we get priority pass back is getting a new law enacted by the General Assembly.”

Business and government leaders are pushing for “a technical correction” when the General Assembly reconvenes Nov. 30. 

“Draft legislative language has already been prepared that would authorize continued priority access for Ocracoke residents,” LeBlanc said.

Hyde County Schools Superintendent Melanie Shaver said the ferry connects not only the island to the mainland but the two geographically separated parts of the Hyde County school system.

 

“The ferry is not simply a transportation option; it is the road that connects our communities, our schools and our services,” Dr. Shaver said. “For visitors, missing a ferry might simply mean waiting for another boat. For an Ocracoke resident, the consequences can be considerably greater.”

“That ferry means missing a dental or medical appointment, attending a school event to see their child, accessing services or simply just getting home,” Dr. Shaver said.

 

Illustrated on the logo are Lake Mattamuskeet Lodge and pump station (at left) on the Hyde County mainland and the iconic Ocracoke Island Lighthouse.

Ken DeBarth, president of the Ocracoke Preservation Society, said: “The boats are our way of life. We need the priority pass. Please make a correction.”

 

‘Coastal Brogue’ preserved on paper in dictionary project

When the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) was published in 1975, it affirmed North Carolina’s “Coastal Brogue” as a special and treasured dialect.

 

To gather the data, 80 field workers aboard a fleet of “word wagons” visited America’s nooks and crannies. Interviews were conducted between 1965-70.

 

The interviewers who were mostly graduate students attending colleges and universities in the Midwest were said to have “especially enjoyed” talking to the crowd from Harkers Island and other Down East Carteret County communities as well as Ocracoke Islanders.

 

They collected beaucoup local sayings and terms for the project. 

Some of the colloquialisms that struck the fancy of editors are listed below.

“Drime” (pronounced as “droim”) – An interjection indicating extreme doubt or incredulous disbelief. Used to express skepticism, much like saying “yeah, riiight!” It serves as a polite or colloquial way to call someone out for exaggerating or telling a tall tale.

“Scomfish” (pronounced as “scumfish”) – A verb meaning to suffocate, stifle, choke, smother or sicken from want of air, from smoke, heat, stench or the like. “So, to be scomfished is altogether an experience to be avoided.”

“Slick cam” – An expression meaning “completely calm, glass-flat water with no wind.” Used to describe weather conditions when the surface of a body of water is completely smooth or slick, undisturbed and reflective.

 

“Mommick” – If you’ve been mommicked, you’re bothered, frustrated, flustered or exhausted by a situation or conditions. Foul weather can be the culprit, leaving one beaten to a pulp and slam worn out. “I’ve been mommicked this day, I have.”

 

“Whopperjawed” – If something is out of kilter, crooked, askew, misaligned or off-balance, it is whopperjawed. A good synonym is “caddywampus (or cattywampus).”

 

“Quamished” – If you’re feeling kind of queasy, sick to your stomach, nauseated or otherwise unwell, you’re quamished.

 

“Mulligrubs” – A condition of despondency, sulkiness or ill temper caused by a “vague or imaginary unwellness.”

“Pizer” – This is another name for a porch or veranda that is attached to a house. Pizer is derived from the Italian word “piazza.”

 

“O’cocker” (pronounced as “O’coker”) – A true born-and-bred native of Ocracoke Island.

 

“Dingbatter” – Originally, this term referred to anyone who is a tourist, but over time, dingbatter has evolved to describe people who come to visit and like the area so much they decide to move here. A related term is “Dit-Dot,” the name given to tourists who come visit, spend their money but then go back home.

 

“Fladget” – A small piece or a tiny flake of something. For example: “He accidentally cut a fladget of skin off his finger.”

“Buck” – A close friend or chum. For example: “I’m having a beer with my bucks.”

 

“Yethy” – A term to describe something that smells bad or stinks. For example: “That five-day-old fish is yethy.”

“Meehonkey” – A version of the game hide-and-seek, which is believed to be unique to Ocracoke Island. The game follows the standard rules of hide-and-seek but features a distinct twist. Hiders call out the word meehonkey to taunt the person who is “it” and searching for them. Children believed the sound mimicked the honking of a goose in flight.

 

“Rantum scoot” – An outing with no definite destination or an aimless, carefree adventure just for pleasure. “Starting out for a day’s tramp in the woods, he would ask whether we wanted to take a ‘reg’lar walk,’ or a rantum scoot, the latter being a plunge into the pathless forest.” (“Rantum” is a linguistic corruption of the word “random.”)

“Scud” – A term to denote sudden, swift movement of a boat under the force of wind. Also, the formation of low scud clouds can move in quickly before a gale.

‘Word wagons’ had a field day…when they got to coastal N.C.

One of the great American linguists and lexicologists of our time was the late Dr. Frederic Gomes Cassidy, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. 

He launched an ambitious effort in 1965 to create the Dictionary of American Regional English (known as the DARE project).

 

DARE was a massive reference work to catalog local words, slang and phrases from all across the United States. The primary source of funding was a series of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from institutions, foundations and private donors.

Frederic Cassidy was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1907. His mother was a native and his father was Canadian. 

As a youth, Cassidy grew up in Akron, Ohio, a community that is featured prominently among the five DARE published volumes.

 

Joan Houston Hall (shown below), DARE’s editor, told Celeste Headlee of the NPR Network: “While it’s fun to learn about colloquial language, there are serious practical uses for the DARE as well. Forensic linguists once used it when a little girl in Akron was kidnapped, and police had only a ransom note to go on.”

 

“In this ransom note, the writer said, ‘Put $10,000 cash in a trash can on the devil’s strip,’” Hall noted.

Headlee reported: “The key phrase in the note was ‘devil’s strip,’ a term believed to be used almost exclusively in Akron, referring to the narrow strip of ground typically found between a city sidewalk and the street.” 

“As it happened, one of the suspects on the police list was a man from Akron. After being confronted with the evidence, linguistic and otherwise, the man ultimately confessed.”

Akron author Robert Trube offered: “Did you ever note how often, between a well-kept lawn and its adjacent sidewalk and a paved street, you see a strip of unkempt stony and weed-grown ground?”

 

This area’s status is a no man’s land between private and public property; it’s viewed as the devil’s place – “barren, unproductive and unused.” Citizens have suggested that it is a strip of land that a property owner must maintain and pay taxes on but is controlled by the municipality. The “devil” in this case is city government, Trube wrote.

There’s yet another legend that bears consideration. During the early-to-mid 20th century, thousands of families migrated from West Virginia to Akron to work in the booming rubber and tire factories. Because the city streets were bustling and dangerous with vehicle and streetcar traffic, working-class mothers needed a quick, effective way to keep their young children safe.

These mothers invented a boogeyman story, telling their children that the patch of ground between the sidewalk and the street belonged to the devil. Children were strictly warned never to step onto the “devil’s strip,” successfully scaring them into staying in the yard or on the sidewalk and preventing them from running out into the street.

Signage in Akron’s residential neighborhoods reminds motorists not to park their vehicles on the “devil strip.”

 

In 2023, the Akron RubberDucks minor league baseball team “rebranded” for one game as the “Akron Devil Strips.” (The RubberDucks are the Double-A affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians.)

Headlee said Dr. Cassidy sent 80 field workers out in “word wagons,” to talk to scads of people in more than 1,000 communities across America between 1965-70, making recordings along the way in order to capture pronunciations.

 

Residents of Down East Carteret County (particularly Harkers Island) were among the interviewees. 

Other coastal region communities visited by the field workers included Elizabeth City, Manteo, New Bern, Ocracoke, Rodanthe, Washington and Wilmington.

In all, the teams visited 34 North Carolina communities. Others in eastern North Carolina were Burgaw, Edenton, Goldsboro, Smithfield, Whiteville and Wilson.

The dictionary entries just started piling up…from “slick cam” weather to things being “whopperjawed.” 

Who let ‘Adam’s house cat’ creep into our lexicon?

You know the feeling…you’re out shopping with a friend and someone comes up to you and starts talking and asks: “How’s your momma ‘n’em?”

 

But you have absolutely no idea who this person is…asking about your family’s health. You’re pretty convinced you’ve never met him or her. And when your shopping partner asks, ‘Who was that?’ you just shrug and say, ‘I don’t know him/her from Adam’s house cat.’”

Every Southerner knows the translation: “I dunno who that is. Beats me.” But the reference to Adam’s house cat may be “a little perplexing’” to a “woodser” or someone from “Off.”

Michael Quinion of London, England, creator of the World Wide Words website, wonders: 

“Is Adam’s house cat a biblical reference? Is it something we missed as a child in Sunday school?”

 

Quinion cited research conducted by author Robert Hendrickson of Far Rockaway, N.Y., who has written dozens of books about “why we talk the way we do.”

Hendrickson says Southerners are famous for taking an oft-used phrase “and improving upon it.” That’s how “Adam’s off ox” became “Adam’s house cat.”

Editors at the Grammarist, a unit of Found First Marketing, a digital publisher based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, try to explain it this way:

“An off ox is the draft animal in a team that is situated on the right, the farthest away from the driver. The driver places the most experienced draft animal closest to his guiding leads, hoping that the off ox will simply follow what the lead animal does. The off ox’ habits and idiosyncrasies would not be as well known to the driver, as it is harder for him to observe the off ox.”

 

“Though the idiom ‘don’t know someone from Adam’s off ox’ has been in use since at least the latter 1880s, it did not emerge into popular culture until U.S. President Bill Clinton used the term during a news conference in 1993.

 

Celeste Headlee of the NPR Network said that a reporter asked Clinton about an Air Force official who had criticized the president. “How could he say that about me?” Clinton responded. “He doesn’t know me from Adam’s off ox.”

 

Headlee said: “Most of the journalists at that news conference had no idea what Clinton was talking about. It turns out the president was using a regional expression that meant the official didn’t know him at all.”

Chrysti Smith, a columnist at the Bozeman (Mont.) Daily Chronicle, said the expression initially appeared just as “I don’t know him from Adam.”

 

She said author Charles Dickens of London, England, was the first to use the expression in print in his 1840 novel “The Old Curiosity Shop” when he has a character remark, “He called to see my Governor this morning…and beyond that, I don’t know him from Adam.”

 

Smith said other variations appear from time to time, including “Adam’s brother,” “Adam’s pet monkey,” “Adam’s Aunt Bessie,” “Adam’s grandmother” and “Adam’s left foot.”

It turns out that 1840 was a “very good year” for idioms in London, England.

Elsewhere in the city, the phrase “two shakes of a lamb’s tail” first appeared in “The Ingoldsby Legends,” written by the Rev. Richard Harris Barham, a cleric in the Church of England, who was assigned as a minor canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

 

Writing for Grammarist, Candace Osmond said: “Two shakes of a lamb’s tail means something will be done quickly or in a very short amount of time – ASAP.”

 

“It’s a whimsical and vivid way of expressing the concept of speed and promptness,” she said.