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California slang is slang used in California English, or which originates in California. The slang heard in California originates from four different regions: Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Central California, and Southern California. Though some slang is used in all four regions, the usage of certain slang can help identify where a person is from in California. Since the center of the film and television industry is in Hollywood, California slang often becomes mainstream American slang due to its usage in movies and television.

Northern California slang

The term Northern California (colloquially referred to as "NorCal" by residents of both Northern and Southern California) is generally used to refer to the State's 48 northernmost counties. Although the dialects of Northern and Southern California are near identical in many respects, they can be differentiated by their use of slang. Perhaps the most defining feature of the Northern California dialect is the use of the word "hella," and its milder form "hecka." Both words are a contraction of the phrase "hell of [a lot of]" and are used to modify adjectives. In general, "hella" means "very," "a lot," or "extremely." For example, the phrase "the pizza was really good" could be replaced with "the pizza was hella good." As of 2010, an online petition, created by Yreka's Austin Sendek, seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 1027.[1] The prefix, which has since appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, and Wired, was implemented by Google in May 2010.[2][3][4] On May 31, 2011, Wolfram Alpha also implemented "hella-" as a supported prefix.[5]

The term "A Kelly" was common soon after the slang term "Betty" was popularized in Southern California, but both terms are now obsolete. Especially in the East Bay and Oakland, the term "Kelly" was used to describe a low maintenance "hot girl". The term was used in the Xbox game A Pimp RPG where the main character Big Daddy K first meets up with Trixie and says "Whoa, you know what you got there? That's a Kelly. She ain't never gonna disappoint."

According to a survey of students at UC Berkeley in Fall 2013, Kelly is no longer used in Northern California; a similar survey at UC Davis yielded the same results.

San Francisco Bay Area slang

Most San Francisco residents will often refer to the city as "SF" or simply "The City". Even in San Jose or Sacramento, going to "the City" refers to going to San Francisco. Sacramentans and San Jose residents refer to their own cities as "downtown". Many San Franciscans, Northern California residents, and people from the rest of the world may also use the slang "Frisco" for "San Francisco", though many San Franciscans and residents of Northern California also dislike the word and consider it derogatory. Oakland is typically referred to as "The Town".

The Bay Area is commonly abbreviated to "The Bay" by Northern California residents.

"Tahoe" is a synonymous term for any area in the greater Lake Tahoe area. It could mean Truckee, South Lake Tahoe ("South Shore"), or even Reno. People visiting the mountains commonly say they are going "up the hill". "It took me 3 hours to drive from the City up the hill to Tahoe."

Gay Culture Influence

Since San Francisco is home to The Castro, the largest gay neighborhood or "gayborhood" in the U.S., a lot of gay slang originates from the gay community living there. Examples include "rice queen", a non-Asian homosexual man who is predominantly attracted to Asian males, and "Castro Clone".[6]

San Francisco Bay Area hip-hop culture slang

Slang from the Bay Area, also known as the "yay area",[citation needed] is influenced by, hip hop music particularly local hyphy music, Mexican, Asian, and Eastern European cultures. Bay Area slang consists of words like: "hyphy", ballin, holla, bounce, chillax, coochie, ginormous, cutty, scraper, perkin, "crossfaded", "yeee", "erray", "ghost ride the whip", "gas break dip", "bootsie", "bleezy", "simpin", "dime", "scrilla", "stunnas", "dubb", "gig", "sideshow", "stunting", and many other words. Some slang is rooted in drug culture such as "thizz" and "molly" for ecstasy, "yayo","yola",or "yay" for cocaine, and "purp", "sticky icky", "yurple", "buds", "trees" for weed. Other slang refers to getting intoxicated, partying, and dancing such as "get stupid", "go dumb", "crossfaded", and "get hyphy". "Bougie," a hacked truncation of the word Bourgeoisie, is used to refer to someone seen as upper-class, or elitist. The slang "yadadamean" means "you know what I mean?" and "fasho" means "for sure". Some derogatory terms for females include "beezy", "ripper", "runner", "ratchet" and "biatch". Bay Area rappers like Mac Dre, Tupac Shakur, E-40, Zion I, Too Short, Andre Nickatina, Luniz, The Pack, The Coup, and more have coined many of these terms in their music. "Swag" or "Swagger" is also slang used in both Northern and Southern California to as a way to describe someone that is "cool." However, this term is now seen as outdated, as it was used for frequently in the Bay Area before becoming mainstream, and therefore overused.

Hippie influence

At the start of The Hippie Movement in San Francisco in the 1960s, the term "hippie" was coined by a San Francisco journalist, Michael Fallon, in his article "A New Haven for Beatniks". During the Counterculture of the 1960s when psychedelic drugs were on the rise, Ken Kesey coined the words "acid test" and "acid rock", in reference to the parties that experimented with Lsd and the music that played in the background by bands such as The Grateful Dead.

Words like Groovy, far out, and peace (as a farewell) are also originated from the Hippie movement. The word "flower child" was coined during the Summer of Love on the streets of the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.

Central California Slang

Central Californian slang tends to be an amalgamation of both Southern and Northern Californian slang, often siding toward the surfers.

Southern California slang

When giving directions, "the" will be used before the freeway/highway number. ie You take the 5 south to get to Mexico. Slang used in Southern California originates from several subcultures:

Beach/Surf Slang

This is often associated with the large population of surfers, skaters, and popular Southern California sports. To be stoked, or excited about something, is slang that can be traced back to sixties surf culture, glorified in movies such as The Endless Summer and Big Wednesday. Words such as gnarly, bro, rad, sick, sketch, beast, epic, swol, "boss" and buzzkill are used regularly now.

Valspeak

Main article: Valleyspeak

The valley girl stereotype, as depicted in the 1983 film Valley Girl, influenced the speech of northern and southern California natives living throughout the San Fernando Valley ("The Valley") in California, by popularizing the valley girl sociolect, where the words "like", "all", "and", "so", "whatever", and "totally" are employed as linguistic fillers.

Hip Hop

People say cruise, jam, bounce, or mob when planning on going somewhere (let's bounce/cruise to the store).[citation needed] People call marijuana trees, chronic, kush, dank, ganja, buds, hydro, purple or skunk, but most commonly, it is simply referred to as "weed." "Trip" is often used to describe an overreaction (don't even trip, it's not a big deal.) "Baller," "G," and "swag"/"swagger" are all terms meaning or relating to "cool."

Beverly Hills

The term '"Betty"' refers to an attractive woman or hottie.

See also

References

  1. ^ Moore, Matthew (2010-03-02). "Hella number: scientists call for new word for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2010-06-04. More than 20,000 scientists, students and members of the public have signed an online petition backing the new quantity, which would be used for figures with 27 zeros after the first digit.
  2. ^ "Jargon Watch". Wired. 18 (6). June 2010. ...a proposed metric prefix...useful for describing mega-measurements like Earth's mass (6 Hellagrams). The International Committee for Weights and Measures agreed to consider it after a Facebook petition garnered 30,000 signatures
  3. ^ "The Official Petition to Establish "Hella-" as the SI Prefix for 10^27". Facebook. Retrieved 2010-06-04.
  4. ^ Kim, Ryan (2010-05-24). "Google gets behind 'hella' campaign". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2010-06-04.
  5. ^ "First goes Google, now goes WolframAlpha". Retrieved 18 October 2012. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  6. ^ Sharpio, Eddie. Remaking the Castro Clone. Out Publishcation, 2008 http://www.out.com/entertainment/2008/12/01/remaking-castro-clone, p. 1.
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