Dear Worcester,
Let me just say: We feel y’all’s pain.
Writer Gertrude Stein famously said a rose is a rose, and that is all fine and dandy. But at the same time, as the birthplace of brunch I can assure you a rose is not a rosé.
If you doubt it, try bringing the former to someone ordering the latter during a jazz brunch at Commander’s and see what happens.
My point: Pronunciation matters.
I realize I am preaching to the proverbial choir here. As a place whose name is likely mispronounced more than it is correctly pronounced, you know that as well as anyone, I am certain.
(Forget your “Hooked on Phonics” lessons, everyone. Say it with me: The Massachusetts city is pronounced “Wuster,” not “War-chester” – and the Bloody Mary ingredient is “Wuster-shire sauce,” not however your Parran mangles it.)
New Orleans has the same problem, except there are even more ways to mispronounce it.
That said, there are a few nuances at play. Indeed, there are multiple ways to pronounce “New Orleans” correctly. Consider this missive an attempt to establish the ground rules once and for all.
Putting aside the French pronunciation, most in Louisiana say it “Noo Or-lins” or “Noo Or-lee-ins,” although certain old-timers like to shake a little extra seasoning on it with such dialectic diversions as “Noo Awl-ins” and, perhaps my favorite, “Noo Awl-yins.”
That last one, for the record, is best delivered with a gravelly Dr. John-informed patois. Extra points if you can draw out the second syllable an extra half-beat – “Noo Awwl-yins” – with something approaching his effortless swampitude.
Now, one sure-fire way to guarantee everyone in town pegs you as a tourist is to pronounce it “N’Awlins,” which, contrary to what Hollywood might make you believe, is acceptable in only one instance – and that is if, and only if, you are Frank Davis.
And you ain’t, dawlin’. There was only one Frank, and he earned a pass by publicly demonstrating his love for Louisiana every week on WWL-TV for decades. (We can reconsider this rule for anyone who achieves his level of Natural N’Awlinsness.)
The whole pronunciation thing reached a hilarious level of absurdism during “La La Land” actor Ryan Gosling’s monologue in the 2017 season premiere of “Saturday Night Live.”
The context is not important. All you need to know for the sake of this discussion is that, roughly two and a half minutes in, Gosling told the audience, “Jazz was born in New Orleenz – or, as it’s correctly pronounced, N’erlins.”
Not even he could keep a straight face after that one.
But even if “N’erlins” is simply so much “SNL” silliness, the “New Orleenz” part is worth pausing on for further discussion, as it is the most common way for outsiders to mispronounce the city’s name.
The rule here is simple: You should say “Orleenz” only if it appears without the “New” in front of it – if, for example, you are talking about the parish that shares boundaries with the city or discussing Orleans Avenue.
The only other acceptable use of “New Orleenz” is if you’re singing a song that needs it for rhyming purposes. As in: “Do you know what it means / to miss New Orleenz?”
After all, Fats Domino AND Louis Armstrong can’t both be wrong.
Of course, you could always take your pick of any of New Orleans’ varied nicknames.
“The Crescent City,” derived from the curve in the Mississippi River in which the city is nestled, has a nice ring.
“The Big Easy” is also acceptable although not widely appreciated among locals, thanks largely to actor Dennis Quaid’s linguistic sins in the 1986 movie of the same name.
There’s also “The City that Care Forgot,” which fits even though nobody seems to know how we got it.
But now that you know how to say New Orleans correctly, you don’t really need any of those.
Admittedly, there is a certain irony in this sort of phonetic sticklerism coming from New Orleans. After all, ours is a culture that puts an “ope” in Calliope and stresses the “gun” in Burgundy – to say nothing of what we have done to those poor muses’ names.
Alas, the Queen’s English has never been our forte. But mispronouncing words is one thing. Mispronouncing place names is just bad manners. I could go on. We haven’t even discussed Opelousas, Natchitoches and Tchoupitoulas yet.
But this rosé isn’t going to drink itself.
Insincerely yours,
New Orleans
Ask Mike Have a question or a thought to share about New Orleans etiquette or tradition? I’d love to hear it. Email it to playbook@myneworleans.com
