hella is much more than a cali thing, ide say if not a "US" thing than at least a westcoast thing because i live in seattle and hear it multiple times on a daily basis.

 

hecka is where you go when you dont believe in gosha


noa, Ia donta usea hella ora hecka

 

I've heard hella up in Maine too, but never anywhere else along the east coast. Never heard hecka, thankfully.. thats ****ing retarded sounding. 'Mad' isn't used much anymore, which is a good thing.

 

I've heard this many times, but I couldn't recall a single conversation where someone said grip. I finally figured it out after awhile that it was mainly an LA thing (I'm from Orange County), and it was a timely term. It's a lot like the word fly. No one really says fly anymore, but you do occassionally here it. I occassionally hear people say grip now.

As for hella, that's just always been a nor cal word that peeps integrated into their vocabulary since pre-school. It's something I hear everyday here in Davis. What I don't get is, why they say it. It's always hella this hella that. Let's just replace the word with really, as that's what it essentially translates too. People don't always say "that's really cool," just "that's cool." For nor cal peeps, they'd add hella in there no matter what. All I know is, this is one word that's never I've never uttered without some form of sarcasm coming from it.

 

"hella" yes
"hecka" - leave that to the hillbilly's.

 

IMHO it is a slang term of a slang term. it appears to be a shortening and slurring of the the term "a hell of a lot"

Like: playing a lawyer on tv is "a hell of a lot" different than actually being one


when people start slurring words and ebonicizing terms and words we just got dumber as an english speaking group of people. its a sign of lazyness IMHO

I would rather see a made up new word that becomes a part of the vernacular than the bastardizing of an existing word or phrase.

 

i use the word hella at least 30 times a day. yes i live in norcal. its a versatile word that cannot always be replaced by words like ****ing. imo everyone should use it. i understand it may be annoying to people outside norcal, but it could be worse. ever try to talk to someone from boston?

 

Worst word ever. If everyone started using it, I'd join the army and get deployed in Iraq.

 

IMO it's "Hella" is more of a Bay Area term. I've lived in NorCal my entire life and nobody in my immediate area uses that word. If I drive an hour north though..."there's hella people saying it".

Not sure about "Hecka' though

 

I used to say hella all the time until I moved to SoCal. Over here people use the word 'gnarly' . I had always thought that word had died out along with bodacious, tubular, and radical