Thursday, February 25, 2010

"Shea" v. "Eh"


In Britney Spears' hometown near NOLA - one often ends a sentence with the interjection, "Shea!" (or "Shea?").
As in: "You get down from da ca an git some Gumbo, Shea?".
(Are you getting out of the car to have some Gumbo? Yes?)

But while watching the Olympics from Canada - I noticed similarities between Canada and Louisiana.
Canada has Nelly Furtado - Louisiana has Britney Spears.
Thanks to the Acadians, French is spoken in parts of Canada - French is spoken in parts of Louisiana.
Canadians often end a sentence with "Eh!" (or "Eh?") - those from Loisiana often end a sentence with "Shea!" (or Shea?").

8 comments:

Mahndisa S. Rigmaiden said...

Louisiana was part of the French territories. My Grandparents on my Dad's side are from Lake Charles. They talk about saying 'Che' for friend when they grew up and speaking Creole in the neighborhood until they got a certain age when it wasn't cool anymore;)

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FreeMan said...

If you include MC8 from Compton Most Wanted with his Cheah then we have a trifecta of mutilation of the word yeah.

Really I never thought about it as every city I visit everyone pronounces certain words differently. Usually the word they mutilate is not a essential word for communication. BUT, when I was in Baltimore they pronounced DOG like DUG so PSA when you get there order a hot dug!

brohammas said...

Nelly urtado gave me a rose during the SLC 2002 Winter Olympics, back before she got skanky.... she was hot.

Saran said...

@ Freeman

I'm from Louisiana and now live in Baltimore. They still pronounce DOG like DUG. Also, if your name is Carolyn, it's CUHRLYN, and Maryland is pronounced MUHRLYN. Give me ALL of the syllables please!
Enough to drive you crazy! LOL

uglyblackjohn said...

@ Mandisa - I have about a hundred cousins in Lake Charles.
SeeNew even worked there for a while.

Reggie said...

I used to live in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans; and even though I lived in a suburb, I was only 5 miles from the 'Nawlin's CBD.

If I'm not mistaken, thousands of French Canadians migrated to New Orleans and the surrounding areas from Canada just a few hundred years ago.

uglyblackjohn said...

@ Reg - Yeah, the Acadians.
But my family came straight from Etienne, France.