Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It KILLS me when I see or hear NAWLINS. Nobody says that, you'll never hear a New Orleanian say that. Local pronunciation may vary from nu-or-LE-ans, nu-Or-lins or nu-Aw-lins but never NAWLINS. It annoys me to death and I just left a room full of tourists inspiring me to make this post.
That's funny! My husband is from New Orleans and absolutely calls it Nawlins, hmmm? Go figure?
Yes, but I hate nicknames for everything. People, places, anything. Things have real names, what is wrong with them?
I think people who use nicknames do so in order to make an ostentatious display of "being in the know" about something. Like only some in-group knows the secret code name for a place.
Rgarding New Orleans, having lived there for a number of years,. I think the local vernacular is more like
"nwawlins"---they don't completely drop all traces of the W. Some also say "nyallins" Blacks ans whites pronounce it rather differently. The pronunciation is highly variable. In general New Orleans natives do not pronounce R in any word. The intensity of the New Orleans accent, like that of Brooklyn, is highly variable within the city, and it would sound jarring to hear someone saying New Orleans using a different accent than the rest of the sentence. So for a non-Orleanian to say "nawlins" would be a complete and conspicuous affectation, and ludicrously improper. When used a noun, it is somewhat different than when used as an attributive adjective. It will even be given a different color if it is the subject of a sentence, or an object. It will, by the same speaker, be given a different number of syllables, or stressed differently, according to how it flows poetically in a sentence. New Orleans city is in Orleans Parish (County), and that is always, by everyone, pronounced as two distinct and stressed syllables---Oar-Leans parish. Radio and TV newscasters, locally, are expected to use four syllables, "noo OAR-le-uns". The water gets even muddier when you go on to figure out how local people pronounce Louisiana, which has even more variations than New Orleans, including "Loo-Zanner".
Oregonians in general hate, hate, hate their state pronounced as O-r-r-e-e-g-a-a-n. Personally, I don't care, never have.
As for how I pronounce other places I often refer to San Francisco as 'San Fran'. The one I get unsure of is New Orleans. I usually stick with New Orl-e-e-ns. Some people say 'New Orl-ins. I've read in numerous travel books that the correct pronunciation is 'Nawlins', which sounds like a local slang to me. And since I don't live there I see no point in adopting their accents. But I also read very recently that 'Nawlins' is merely a tourist-guide thing (which is a stupid thing for the authors to do). I'll just stick with New Orl-e-e-ns.
When I was in Seattle, I tended to hear people use "SeaTown", which didn't really bother me too much, though I never was one to use it. Other names like Emerald City and Jet City don't really get used except in business names and tourist brochures, from my experience. Now I live in Indiana and more or less everyone calls Indianapolis "Indy", local or not. I mean, seriously, six syllables? I don't have all day, geez
What does bother me is when people use stuff like postal abbreviations (not so bad, as it is usually referring to a region instead of a specific place), airport codes (PDX? Portland didn't have an X in it last time I checked), or worst of all, area codes. The only ones I've heard used are "the 206" and "the 808" but they both irk me greatly.
People from California, does it bother you when people call it "Cali" in place of California or "L-A" in place of Los Angeles. How about San Fran?
People from New Jersey does it make you mad when people call your state "Jersey" when they've never been there?
Las Vegans does it bother you when people refer to your city as "Vegas" or "Sin City"?
New Yorkers how do you feel when people call New York "N-Y-C" or "The big apple"?
I personally don't like when people from outside the metro area that have never stepped foot in the city refer to Atlanta as "The A-T-L" or "Hotlanta."
What is your take on all of this? Is it disrespectful and annoying or is just common langauge and how we as Americans abbreviate places' names?
Everyone calls my town Boston, Beantown, or The Bean. I call it "the city", or "town", as in, "Do you have any plans tonight? I hear there's a show going on in the city". But thats pretty much it. I'm not sure if its just here or everywhere, but we seem to abbreviate every word.
I was scolded years ago by my native San Franciscan aunt that we never say "frisco", it's San Francisco or The City. It's always been a pet peeve of mine when people say "goin to Frisco this weekend". Ugh. Don't like Cali either. Fresnans are very particiular about what you call them. An Auto industry (I think), billboard called us "Fresnoids" and they got so many complaints they had to change the billboards.
What about San Fran? For whatever reason that's always what I've called San Francisco.
I would never call it Frisco, not sure why, the word just really bothers me.
Chi-town is the one I hear from people who actually live here. Although when I hear slang it's usually 85% of people just calling it "The City" or even just "Downtown" if you're from the suburbs. When I'm back in Iowa I always say "Yeah, I'm heading back to the city on Tuesday" even though I'm not even in the state...just habit I guess. When people say "Where do you live in Chicago", I always just respoind "In the city" since I assume they won't know neighborhoods anyway.
Windy City I ONLY hear from tourists or maybe some newscaster. It makes me roll my eyes when people visiting on windy days say "Oh my god! Now I know why they call it the windy city!!". Umm, not so much. It's about middle of the pack for large cities as far as average wind speed.
The Chi I've heard from people who don't live here, and that seems to be the one that locals roll their eyes at the most. Probably just because it's so NOT what locals would say.
Second City I don't mind, but again it's usually the national media or someone not from Chicago.
The one that irks me is "Chicagoland". I believe it was coined by suburban chamber of commerce types whose individual communities are basically unknown outside northern IL. (Where the hell is Ormond Park, or Buffalo Grove, or Glencoe? )
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
