re: How common is this Cajun term?

As common as “bayou.”


What’s the loneliest bayou in the world?

Bayou self

A coulee is not a ditch and a ditch is not a coulee. A coulee is a big arse ditch dat, cher. A ditch is just where the water runs in my front yard dere

i heard more frequently when i was younger and lived in the lafayette area. havent heard it at all since then.

I hate the way these people talk and their stupid sayings.

They give rest of us Louisianaians a bad name.


Just as bad as Ebonics

I think the term is used all over North America

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Coulee, or coulée (/'ku?le?/ or /'ku?li?/)[1] is a term applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone. The word coulee comes from the Canadian French coulée, from French couler 'to flow'.

The term is often used interchangeably in the Great Plains for any number of water features, from ponds to creeks.

In southern Louisiana the word coulée (also spelled coolie) originally meant a gully or ravine usually dry or intermittent but becoming sizable during rainy weather. As stream channels were dredged or canalized, the term was increasingly applied to perennial streams, generally smaller than bayous. The term is also used for small ditches or canals in the swamp.

In the northwestern United States, coulee is defined as a large, steep-walled, trench-like trough, which also include spillways and flood channels incised into the basalt plateau.

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In BR, that "canal" that runs behind TJ Ribs on Acadian would be called a coulee in Acadiana.

Everyone in Lake Charles knows the coulee that starts at Bank Street at St Louis and runs through the city until it hits Lake Charles at Lakeshore Dr.

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So just wondering exactly where people think Cajun country is.

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East of hwy 165, South of Hwy 10 all the way to the Atchafalaya River. Then everything south of the Mississippi River to the coast along Hwy 90.

Complicated but not really.