Hella (word)
Encyclopedia
Hella is a word associated with Northern California
used throughout the United States
and Canada
. It is a contraction
of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]".
It often appears in place of the words "really," "a lot," "totally," "very," and in some cases, "yes." Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun
, according to linguist Pamela Munro
, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective
such as "good."
According to lexicographer Allan A. Metcalf, the word is a marker of Northern California dialect. According to Colleen Cotter, "Southern Californians know the term ... but rarely use it." Sometimes the term grippa is used to mock "NorCal" dialect, with the actual meaning being the opposite of hella. A commentator at UC Davis
notes that using the term in the presence of "SoCalers" can elicit a range of extreme reactions.
since at least the mid 1970s
. By 1993, Mary Bucholtz
, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara
collated materials from an urban high school( Mt. Eden High School) in the Bay Area, and found that hella was "used among Bay Area (and more specifically Hayward, CA) youth of all racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds and both genders." "Hella" remains part of the dialect of Northern California and the Northwest, where it has grown in popularity. It is believed by most that the word originated in the eastern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area (Hayward, California
). James Hetfield and the members of Metallica were one of the first celebrities to use the word in both music and interviews. Having come from the bay area around the time the word's popularity spread, it could be said that he was one of the first people to bring "Hella" to the mainstream.
term. With the release of the 2001 No Doubt
song "Hella Good
," one Virginia
n transplant in California "fear[ed] the worst: nationwide acceptance of this wretched term."
In the South Park
episode "Spookyfish
," which was the 1998 Halloween
special, the character Cartman repeatedly used the term hella to the annoyance of the other characters, which contributed to its currency spreading nationally. "You guys are hella stupid" is one of the phrases spoken by a talking Cartman doll released in 2006. The Sacramento
-based band Hella
chose its name for the regional association; Zach Hill
says "It's everywhere up here.... We thought it was funny, and everyone says it all the time."
That pizza was hella good: hella modifies the adjective good, where Standard American English would use very.
I ate hella pizza: hella modifies the noun pizza, replacing a lot of.
I hella bought four pizzas: hella modifies the verb to buy, replacing really or totally.
I ran hella quickly to the pizza joint when I heard about the one dollar cheese slices from my friend when we were talking at four in the afternoon one Saturday night: hella modifies the adverb quickly, replacing very.
for 1027. The prefix, which has since appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle
, Daily Telegraph
, and Wired
, was implemented by Google
in May 2010.
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
used throughout the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It is a contraction
Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]".
It often appears in place of the words "really," "a lot," "totally," "very," and in some cases, "yes." Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
, according to linguist Pamela Munro
Pamela Munro
Pamela Munro is an American linguist who specializes in Native American languages. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, her graduate adviser was Margaret Langdon. She teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles...
, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
such as "good."
According to lexicographer Allan A. Metcalf, the word is a marker of Northern California dialect. According to Colleen Cotter, "Southern Californians know the term ... but rarely use it." Sometimes the term grippa is used to mock "NorCal" dialect, with the actual meaning being the opposite of hella. A commentator at UC Davis
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...
notes that using the term in the presence of "SoCalers" can elicit a range of extreme reactions.
Earliest studies of the term
Hella has likely existed in California EnglishCalifornia English
California English is a dialect of the English language spoken in California. California is home to a highly diverse population, which is reflected in the historical and continuing development of California English.-History:English was first spoken on a wide scale in the area now known as...
since at least the mid 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
. By 1993, Mary Bucholtz
Mary Bucholtz
Mary Bucholtz is professor of Linguistics at the UC Santa Barbara. Bucholtz received her B.A. in Classics from Grinnell College in 1990 and her Ph.D. in Linguistics from UC Berkeley in 1995, and has held previous academic positions at Stanford and Texas A&M University...
, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
collated materials from an urban high school( Mt. Eden High School) in the Bay Area, and found that hella was "used among Bay Area (and more specifically Hayward, CA) youth of all racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds and both genders." "Hella" remains part of the dialect of Northern California and the Northwest, where it has grown in popularity. It is believed by most that the word originated in the eastern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area (Hayward, California
Hayward, California
Hayward is a city located in the East Bay in Alameda County, California. With a population of 144,186, Hayward is the sixth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area and the third largest in Alameda County. Hayward was ranked as the 37th most populous municipality in California. It is included in...
). James Hetfield and the members of Metallica were one of the first celebrities to use the word in both music and interviews. Having come from the bay area around the time the word's popularity spread, it could be said that he was one of the first people to bring "Hella" to the mainstream.
Nationwide spread
By 1997, the word had spread to hip hop culture, though it remained a primarily West CoastWest Coast hip hop
West Coast hip hop is a hip hop music subgenre that encompasses any artists or music that originates in the westernmost region of the United States, as opposed to East Coast hip hop, based originally in New York alone...
term. With the release of the 2001 No Doubt
No Doubt
No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California that formed in 1986. The ska-pop sound of their first album No Doubt , failed to make an impact...
song "Hella Good
Hella Good
"Hella Good" is a song written by Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, and The Neptunes for No Doubt's fifth studio album Rock Steady . The song draws influence from electro, rock, and funk music...
," one Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
n transplant in California "fear[ed] the worst: nationwide acceptance of this wretched term."
In the South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
episode "Spookyfish
Spookyfish
"Spookyfish" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the animated television series South Park, and the 28th episode of the series overall. "Spookyfish" originally aired in the United States on October 28, 1998 on Comedy Central...
," which was the 1998 Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
special, the character Cartman repeatedly used the term hella to the annoyance of the other characters, which contributed to its currency spreading nationally. "You guys are hella stupid" is one of the phrases spoken by a talking Cartman doll released in 2006. The Sacramento
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
-based band Hella
Hella (band)
Hella is an American band from Sacramento, California. They play a technical blend of math rock, noise rock, and experimental rock. The primary members of the band are Spencer Seim on electric guitar and Zach Hill on drums...
chose its name for the regional association; Zach Hill
Zach Hill
Zach Hill is a musician residing in Sacramento, California. Primarily known for his drumming, he performs/has performed in numerous Pacific Coast based groups, including his primary group, Hella, as well as Holy Smokes, Nervous Cop, and a diverse range of others including El Grupo Nuevo de Omar...
says "It's everywhere up here.... We thought it was funny, and everyone says it all the time."
Worldwide spread
Hella was recently included on the BBC's list of 20 words that sum up the 2000-2009 decade. Defining it as "An intensive in Youthspeak, generally substituting for the word 'very,' inclusion on the list marks its ascension into the international slang lexicon. However the word does not exist the Oxford Dictionary and thus there are less ten thousand instances per day where the word is used and thus there is no international spread at all.Intensifier
While intensifiers similar to hella exist in many colloquial varieties, hella is unique in its flexibility. It can be used to modify almost any part of speech, as shown below.That pizza was hella good: hella modifies the adjective good, where Standard American English would use very.
I ate hella pizza: hella modifies the noun pizza, replacing a lot of.
I hella bought four pizzas: hella modifies the verb to buy, replacing really or totally.
I ran hella quickly to the pizza joint when I heard about the one dollar cheese slices from my friend when we were talking at four in the afternoon one Saturday night: hella modifies the adverb quickly, replacing very.
SI prefix
As of 2010, an online petition seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefixSI prefix
The International System of Units specifies a set of unit prefixes known as SI prefixes or metric prefixes. An SI prefix is a name that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a decadic multiple or fraction of the unit. Each prefix has a unique symbol that is prepended to the unit symbol...
for 1027. The prefix, which has since appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, and Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
, was implemented by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
in May 2010.
See also
- SkookumSkookumSkookum is a Chinook jargon word that has come into general use in the Pacific Northwest region of North America.The word skookum has three meanings:# a word in regional English that has a variety of positive connotations;...
, a similar word used in the Pacific NorthwestPacific NorthwestThe Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
, from the Chinook JargonChinook JargonChinook Jargon originated as a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest, and spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and as far as Alaska, sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language... - Da kineDa kineDa kine is an expression in Hawaiian Pidgin , probably derived from "that kind", that usually functions grammatically as a placeholder name , but can also take the role of a verb, adjective, or adverb...
, similar Hawaiian slang term - ValspeakValspeakValleyspeak or Valspeak is a common name for an American sociolect, originally of Los Angeles, California, in particular Valley girls. This stereotype, which originated in the 1970s, became an international fad for a certain period...
, a dialect spoken in 1970s to 1990s Southern CaliforniaSouthern CaliforniaSouthern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, especially in the namesake San Fernando ValleySan Fernando ValleyThe San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
External links
- hecka at the Double-Tongued Dictionary