An Alternate Explanation of Hella
There aren’t significant differences between northern and southern California, so naturally we fixate on the little things: we hate that they call the freeway “the 101″, while our dedication to the word hella is looked down upon. For those who didn’t know, it means “very” or “a lot”. Well, it’s totally unrelated, but the Dutch word hele/heel (pronounced something like hale-uh/hale) has a similar meaning. So there you go, the Dutch have been influencing Northern California’s English. =)
Tags: Dutch, English, hella, language, Northern California, Southern California
October 30th, 2007 at 12:34 am
I’m so sick of people ridiculing “hella.” When I was a kid, every other word out of our mouths was “hella.” It’s a great word. I have no idea why it bothers people. Is “hella awesome” really so much weired than “awesome as hell”? Same thing really.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Weired? Jesus, really low batting average today for typos.