Just as we were all getting used to dropping SoMo, the GaP, and SoNYA in conversation, Washington’s name-shortening trend has struck again. The Post‘s Tom Sietsema reports that the new restaurant going in next to the Spy Museum will be called NoPa. NoPa, as in North of Pennsylvania Avenue.

NoPa is worrying because it means name-shortening has made the leap from the fevered minds of PoPville commenters and into the physical world. Besides, it sounds like a noise you’d make while talking with your mouth full.

And that might not be the end of name woes for restauranteur Ashok Bajaj, the man behind NoPa. That’s because there’s already a fancy restaurant called nopa in San Francisco. Different approaches to capitalization aside, the similarity might mean name-shortening will get sent back to the neighborhood listservs where it belongs.

Photo via Google Maps