Our Lingo

Here in New Orleans don't speak like other Americans. That is, we have a distinctive lingo and dialect unique to any place. It's probably because our heritage comes form many linguistic influences. The city was founded by France in the 17th century and intermittently taken over by Spain. Later the Cajuns came to us from Nova Scotia and brought version of French that those in Paris describe as "gutter language". Next the Germans (most of my own ancestors came here from Germany), the Irish, Italians English and, of course, African slaves. Mix all of that and you have an English dialect that is not the same as anywhere else in New Orleans.
We say "banquette" for sidewalk, "neutral ground" for the strip of land everyone else calls the median. If you want a soda pop in New Orleans make sure you ask for a "cold drink" (even if the drink is not chilled).
That American unit of currency called a dime is a "silver dime" here. Saying hello to someone is usually done with a "Where y'at" (How are you), "Awrtie" means all right, "Ax" is ask, "boo" is a term of endearment for small kids, "Cap" a way to address a man, "Dat" means that, "Gawed" the diety we worship here and on and on and one. I could probably relate a thousands dialect or vocabulary differences here because I was raised in New Orleans, a place where one learns English and New Orleansese.
Why, even the name of the city is pronounced innumerable ways. Tourists are sometimes bewildered when listening to us, but we understand even the most arcane New Orleanian speaker. Why...each neighborhood (pre Hurricane Katrina, that is) has its own imput into the dialect here, but one universal is that we never pronounce words that end in "er" or "ing"as spelled. So a trailer is a "trala", border is "borda", driver "driva", etc. And those ing words become a shorter version.
Swimming is "swimmin", looking "lookin" etc. Having writtin (I left the "g" off just for you..Hehe) all of this, the point is we now have some new Hurricane Katrina lingo being dashed about by the few New Orleans still brave enough to try to live here. The latest one is the change of the old friendly New Orleans greeting "Where y'at". Now we are hearing that greeting as "How's ya'house" (as if to ask the person one greets whether the person still has a house, has repaired the hurricane damage to it or is living in another house).
And instead of asking someone we meet "How's your mom an'them" we say "Where's your mom an' them" ( still in New Orleans or gone like so many. So much for the linguistic splice of life here. I just wrote about it to show one of a thousand ways my city was a special and different place in which to live.
But those days may be past. As we might say to anyone foolish enough to visit New Orleans post Katrina.. " Don put earl in your car cause we ain got tidy streets for ya to go by my house. Jus lookit da T.V to see fur yurself."