NOLA

Informant: Caitlin Flint, age 21, Metairie, LA. Collected on May 22, 2016 and recorded on an iphone.

Verbal Lore: Folk speach, slang- associated material lore

English

United States of America

context: NOLA is an Acronym for New Orleans, LouisianA that has been turned into a word. It simply means the city of New Orleans

Transcript:

“ And the last  bit of slang that I was going to mention is the term ‘Nola’ N-O-L-A.  Nola is short for New Orleans , Louisiana.  Its not uses particularly often, it is used in a lot of cases to refer to the city by locals, there is in fact a nola.com which is a very popular news site for the city, especially for anyone who, like me, does not live in the city right now, for gaining knowledge.  In a lot of cases it is used by the Tourist industry to push forward tourism.  I imagine that is how it first began, but the locals started using it themselves to refer to the city. So, often you will hear Nola as being described by people who are out of state when taking about the city or when talking about hurricanes. But don’t hear it a lot when you are actually in the city, but it is used by New Orleans locals.”

Collectors Comentary: Nola was originally an acronym that was shortened for easy usage in everyday speach. As such it is a unique bit of folk speach and slang. The term itself may have been born from evolving folk speach, but it has been propagated through usage by the tourism industry and the proliferation of items, like shirts, hats, art, that incorporate the word an thus spread its usage far beyond the city limits. It is unique to NO because it specfically refers to the city and is used mostly by locals and former residents as opposed to people from elsewhere.

Keywords: New Orleans, NOLA, tourism, Louisiana