''Hella'' is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'' in 2002. It is possibly a

contraction Contraction may refer to: Linguistics * Contraction (grammar), a shortened word * Poetic contraction, omission of letters for poetic reasons * Elision, omission of sounds ** Syncope (phonology), omission of sounds in a word * Synalepha, merged ...

of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot f, in turn reduced to "hell of", though some scholars doubt this etymology since its grammatical usage does not align with those phrases. 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 A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

, according to linguist

Pamela Munro Pamela Munro (b. May 23, 1947) is an American linguist who specializes in Native American languages. She is a distinguished research professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she has held a position si ...

, ''hella'' is primarily used to modify an

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...

such as "good". According to lexicographer Allan A. Metcalf, the word is a marker of

northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

dialect. According to Colleen Cotter, "

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

ns 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

Early use

''Hella'' has likely existed in

California English California English (or Californian English) collectively refers to varieties of American English native to California. A distinctive vowel shift was first noted by linguists in the 1980s in southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area of n ...

since at least the mid-1970s. Geoff Nunberg, a UC Berkeley linguist, has theorized on the origins of the slang term "hella". “Hella emerged somewhere in Northern California around the late 1970s, and although it spread to other places, it’s still associated with this region,” says Nunberg. Historically, many slang words have spread from black English to white English and not in the other direction, which is why Nunberg says he suspects it started in Oakland, an area that, at one point, was 47% African American. By 1993,

Mary Bucholtz Mary Bucholtz (born 29 October 1966) is professor of linguistics at UC Santa Barbara. Bucholtz's work focuses largely on language use in the United States, and specifically on issues of language and youth; language, gender, and sexuality; African ...

, a linguist at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

, collated materials from an urban high school (Mt. Eden High School) in the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

and found that ''hella'' was "used among Bay Area 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.

Spread

By 1997, the word had spread to

hip hop culture Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. Hip hop culture is characterized by four key elements: rapping, DJing and turntablis ...

, though it remained a primarily

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

term. With the release of the 2001

No Doubt No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California, formed in 1986. For most of their career, the band has consisted of vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young. Since the mid-1990s, they ...

song "

Hella Good "Hella Good" is a song by American rock band No Doubt from their fifth studio album, ''Rock Steady'' (2001). Written by Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal and the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), and produced by Nellee Hooper and the band, "Hel ...

," one

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

n transplant in California "fear dthe worst: nationwide acceptance of this wretched term." Since the early 1990s ''hella'' has been used regularly in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

as a common slang term, particularly in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. Popular area rappers

Blue Scholars Blue Scholars is an American hip hop duo based in Seattle, Washington, created in 2002 while the members, DJ Sabzi (Saba Mohajerjasbi) and MC Geologic (George Quibuyen), were students at University of Washington. The name "Blue Scholars" is ...

and

Macklemore Benjamin Hammond Haggerty (born June 19, 1983), better known by his stage name Macklemore ( ; (formerly Professor Macklemore), is an American rapper and songwriter. A native of Seattle, Washington, he has collaborated with producer Ryan Lewi ...

regularly use the term in their lyrics; Macklemore uses the word several times in his worldwide hit song "

Thrift Shop Thrift may refer to: * Frugality * A savings and loan association in the United States * Apache Thrift, a remote procedure call (RPC) framework * Thrift (plant), a plant in the genus ''Armeria'' * Syd Thrift (1929–2006), American baseball execut ...

". In the ''

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...

'' episode "

Spookyfish "Spookyfish" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the American animated television series '' South Park''. The 28th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 28, 1998. The epi ...

," which was the 1998

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...

special, the character

Cartman Eric Theodore Cartman, commonly referred to by his surname Cartman, is a fictional character in the adult animated sitcom ''South Park'', created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. He is voiced by Parker, and is one of the series' four main charact ...

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 ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

-based band

Hella ''Hella'' is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 2002. It is possibl ...

chose its name for the regional association;

Zach Hill Zachary Charles Hill (born December 28, 1979) is an American multi-instrumentalist and visual artist. He is best known as the drummer and co-producer of the groups Death Grips and the I.L.Y's, and as the drummer of math rock band Hella. Art In ...

says "It's everywhere up here.... We thought it was funny, and everyone says it all the time." ''Hella'' was included on the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

's list of 20 words that sum up the 2000-2009 decade, defined as "An intensive in Youthspeak, generally substituting for the word ''very''". Paralleling the use of the

minced oath A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" ...

''heck'', some people use ''hecka'' in place of ''hella''. Younger school children may be required to use this form. Church culture in Northern California also encouraged usage of ''hecka'' over ''hella''. The

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...

song "

U Got The Look "U Got the Look" is a song by American musician Prince. It opens the second disc of Prince's double album ''Sign o' the Times'' (1987), and became the album's runner-up chart single. Musically, the song is a standard 12-bar rock song with emphasis ...

," released in 1987 on the album ''

Sign o' the Times ''Sign o' the Times'' (often stylized as ''Sign "☮︎" the Times'') is the ninth studio album by American singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. It was first released on March 30, 1987 as a double album by Paisley Park ...

'', features the lyric "your body's hecka slammin'...", which would appear to be an early adoption of the term ''hecka'' in its accepted vernacular usage.

Usage

Intensifier

While

intensifier In linguistics, an intensifier (abbreviated ) is a lexical category (but ''not'' a traditional part of speech) for a modifier that makes no contribution to the propositional meaning of a clause but serves to enhance and give additional emotional co ...

s similar to ''hella'' exist in many colloquial varieties, ''hella'' is uncommonly flexible. It can be used to modify almost any

part of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...

, as shown below: *''That pizza was hella good'': ''hella'' modifies the adjective ''good,'' where Standard American English would use ''very''. *''Chris's pizza is hella better than anyone else's'': ''hella'' modifies the adjective ''better'', replacing ''much''. *''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 to the pizza joint hella quickly'': ''hella'' modifies the adverb ''quickly'', replacing ''very''. *''Was the party fun last night?'' ''-- Hella!'': ''hella'' is used on its own as a reply replacing ''very'' or ''totally''.

SI prefix

An online petition begun in 2010 by Austin Sendek of

Yreka, California Yreka ( ) is the county seat of Siskiyou County, California, United States, near the Shasta River; the city has an area of about , most of it land. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 7,807, reflecting a meager increase fro ...

seeks to establish "hella-" as the

SI prefix The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. E ...

for 10²⁷. The prefix was recognized by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

in May 2010, and

Wolfram Alpha WolframAlpha ( ) is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It answers factual queries by computing answers from externally sourced data. WolframAlpha was released on May 18, 2009 and is based on Wolfram's earlier product Wolfram Mathe ...

in May 2011. In 2013,

Andrew McAfee Andrew Paul McAfee (born ), a principal research scientist at MIT, is cofounder and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He studies how digital technologies are changing the world. Life ...

suggested the term ''hellabyte'' with this usage.

References

External links

hecka
at the Double-Tongued Dictionary
Hella Facts About the Word Hella by George McIntire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hella (Word) 1990s slang 2000s slang 2010s slang California culture English-language slang English words