Proud of Who Dats

Times Picayune
Letter to the Editor from Joe Sexton, Slidell, La.

I am responding to the letter by Louis C. LaCour Jr. in the Dec. 27 edition of your newspaper objecting to the "who dat?" chant as a grammatical abomination epitomizing modern local illiteracy and failing schools.

"Who dat?" has proud origins. According to Wikipedia: "Who dat?" dates back more than a century to the vaudeville acts and minstrel shows of the late 1800s and was kept alive by jazz and big band performers until the 1930s. It endured into the 1950s in short clips and some early television shows. In the swing era, extemporaneous "who dat" chants were legendary between the big band leader and the band or between the band leader and the audience. The Marx Brothers had a "who dat" routine. It was a favorite anonymous radio communication between fighter pilots flying under mandatory radio silence during World War II.

So, who dat say bad things about Who Dats?