New Orleans Slang

One of my favorite things about New Orleans is its slang. My two friends are always up to the latest slang and I find myself emulating their speech all the time. To be honest, I'm not even sure if most of what they say is uniquely New Orleans, so this post may be a little inaccurate, but whenever I use certain phrases around out-of-state people, they don't know what I'm saying, so maybe these types of things are from New Orleans.

To say someone is really excited I'll say they're "bucked up", or more commonly shortened to just "bucked". For example, I'm really bucked that the library is open 24/7 for finals week.

When someone really does something annoying and goes above and beyond to grate your nerves, you can say they're "doing the most". When someone does the most, they usually "blow it", or annoy you. For inanimate objects you can also say, for example, "That blew me!" (but you don't want to say a person blew you...) You can get creative with this phrase. For example, me and my friends say things like, "She blew it out the water!" or "My teacher blew it out of this universe!" I don't know where this phrase originated, but it's so funny to me. I've also noticed that it's been spreading and more people from out-of-town are using it. Another phrase that is similar is "drove". When something annoys you, you are drove. For example, I'm too drove that my lab partner didn't do his part of the lab. He blew it!

When someone is "wrong" for something ("he wrong for that"), you can say they're "downbad". For example, my professor is downbad for telling us we can relax and watch a documentary, then afterwards saying we should've been taking notes because that documentary will be on our exam.

When something is really funny and really makes you laugh, you're "joked out", or for short just "joked". For example, This girl was so funny, she had me joked out. A common acronym for this phrase is "jtfo" (joked the **** out). Similar to jtfo is ktfo, which means knocked the **** out. Usually I use this when I'm taking naps...like goodness I was ktfo after class today! (obviously these acronyms are used online)

Something you'll hear a lot is "LAWWWD" or even "LAWEEE". People like to say that really loudly. It's just like an exclamation of an emotion. Like, "LAWD that test was so hard today" or "LAWD This girl so downbad".

An attractive man is called a "trade", and girls always play around like, "I'm getting all them trades" if they talk to boys they consider attractive.

Something unique, I think, is the phrase "don't owe me nothing". It basically means that something is so good that it doesn't owe you anything. For example, "LAWD This Popeyes chicken don't owe me nothing!!" Very similar is the phrase "giving me everything" or "giving me life". It's so good that it's giving you everything/life. For example, "Man, that nap I just took gave me everything!"

Something that my out-of-state friends always tell me I say a lot is "playing games" or "games are being played". It basically means someone's messing around or screwing up or "blowing it". Like for example, if a professor assigns a TON of work at once, I'll probably be like "LAWWWWD Professor so-and-so is playing TOOO many games!"

The next piece of slang is one of my favorites. It's the word "stay". It basically takes the place of "always" in a sentence. For example, I stay taking naps after class = I'm always taking naps after class. I personally use this phrase a lot. I don't know why, but I really like this particular phrase. I stay using it!

Finally, this piece of slang is really common and you'll hear it from New Orleanians a lot. It's the word "beaucoup", which basically means "a lot". People will often butcher the spelling online as "buku" or "bookoo" or something, but I prefer to use "beaucoup" even though you do pronounce it like buku or bookoo. An example would be, "I got beaucoup tests this week" or "There was beaucoup people up in the bookstore trying to buy their blue books for exams." You can also use this word in front of adjectives, like "I'm beaucoup drove today" or "She beaucoup bucked up cause she got her some trades". What's unique about this word as compared to the other phrases in this post, is that even though my mom and grandma don't know practically any of this "new New Orleans slang", they both know and use beaucoup, and it's been around for a long time.