(AP) NEW ORLEANS In this city of so many linguistic influences, Hurricane Katrina is the latest to reshape the colorful local tongue.

You hear it all over town. For instance: At a supermarket, where two friends were reunited like thousands of others after exile in whatever city Katrina blew them to.

"How's ya' house?" Walter Thompson inquired cautiously of buddy Mark Smith.

Thompson was speaking what's become the new, oft-repeated greeting in this city of wrecked homes and dislocated people.

"How's ya' house?" has replaced the more cheerful "Where y'at?" as the unofficial salutation

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