Hella

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Biography

Hella is a word associated with Northern California used throughout the United States and Canada . Contrary to popular belief, it is not a contraction (grammar)|contraction of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot ", but instead derived from the Greek prefix Heka-. Students at UC Hayward began using the prefix Heka- much like the now more common hella as a descriptive word to indicate "a lot" or "really" and as the word spread, people unfmailiar with the origins began to take it as a tamer version of the word hell, "heck." As the word spread through Northern California it evolved into "Hell-a."
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.

History

Earliest studies of the term

Hella has likely existed in California English 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, California|Hayward ) youth of all racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds and both genders." "Hella" remains part of the dialect of Northern California, 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). 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 Coast hip hop|West Coast term. With the release of the 2001 No Doubt song " Hella Good ," one Virginia n transplant in California "fear 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, California|Sacramento -based band Hella (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."

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 than ten thousand instances per day where the word is used and thus there is no international spread at all.

Usage

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 : hella modifies the adverb quickly , replacing very .

SI prefix

As of 2010, an online petition seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 10²⁷. The prefix, which has since appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle , The Daily Telegraph|Daily Telegraph , and Wired (magazine)|Wired , was implemented by Google in May 2010.

Copyright Citations

This article is licensed under the GNU License
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