This Is This

I know a lot has been said and written about New Orleans, but here are some more thoughts.

Because I used to live there, I find it hard to read reports of ungodly things happening in places I can remember walking down on the way to work. I was a producer for my first media job at WWNO, the local NPR-affiliated radio station. I can picture each street I read about in the news reports: Carrollton, Canal, Rampart, St Charles, Prytania, Esplanade, Claiborne. I lived on Audubon street Uptown across from the park and next to the Tulane and Loyola Universities and had many friends there. Each mention of a street brings to mind a place I used to have coffee or a big night out.

The events over the past week have brought out the worst in some people. Some folks can’t help themselves. This includes me and my pedantry. I’m nothing if not attentive to detail, and I can be a pain in the arse, so here are some gripes.

Misquoted
As the floods came in, the editor of the Times Picayune website ended an editorial on http://www.nola.com/ with the words “New Orleans is sinking… and I don’t want to swim.” Most New Orleanians know this is the chorus of a song by Canadian band The Tragically Hip, and using it in an article is a brave smirk in the face of adversity.

But the BBC folks read this and ran it as a prominent pullout quote in their lead article on their website: “New Orleans is sinking, says editor of the city’s largest paper.” Information isn’t knowledge - online hacks should never forget that. Speaking of which, listen to Fiddler’s Green by The Tragically Hip. It’s gear.

Mispoken
New Orleans isn’t pronounced “New orLEEEENS”, OK? It’s “New OR-le-ans”. Three syllables. “N’Awlins” if you’re from there, but never “or-LEENS”. I don’t expect newsreaders to pronounce it like locals, but they should get it right. Don’t get me started on “Tchicago”, which drives me mad.

Misnamed
No one from New Orleans calls it the Big Easy. That’s a name other people give it. Residents call it the Crescent City because of the shape of the river around the middle of town. Just like people from San Fransisco don’t call their city “Frisco”, the Big Easy is what travel agents and New Yorkers call it.

Mistake
The worst headline of the year appeared on Wednesday in the (London) Times which ran above a picture of the flooded city under the headline “Mississippi Drowning”.

This is bad for so many reasons:

1. New Orleans is in Louisiana, not Mississippi.
2. If they meant the river, which is the Mississippi, I think:”how can a river drown?”
3. It is a very bad pun at the expense of an emergency.
4. It makes light of the very serious subject matter of Mississippi Burning.

This, however, is an exceptional headline. Thanks to Kiwi Mike for spotting it.

Next week: “Tsunami”. It’s with a “ts”. “Tsuh” - “tsuh”. Try it with me…

Also on This Is This
I wonder if Ritchie Valence ever got any stick for sharing a name with the frilly skirty bit that goes around the side of a bed.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2005 at 11:12 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or leave a comment yourself.