:Hella

Hella has likely existed in northern California English 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.{{cn|date=December 2021}}

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 youth of all racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds and both genders."{{Cite book |last=Bucholtz |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Bucholtz |url=https://archive.org/details/culturalapproach0000mona |title=A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings |publisher=Blackwell |year=2006 |isbn=9781405125956 |editor-last=Goodman |editor-first=Jane |location=Malden, MA |pages=243–267 |chapter=Word Up: Social Meanings of Slang in California Youth Culture |oclc=71243975 |access-date=2014-05-25 |editor-last2=Monaghan |editor-first2=Leila |chapter-url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0c7141bs}} Hella remains part of the dialect of northern California, where it has grown in popularity.

By 1997, the word had spread to hip hop culture, though it remained a primarily West Coast term.{{Cite news |last=Lynette Holloway |date=January 5, 1997 |title=Shorties and Scholars Agree, the Word Is Rap |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E01E2D61739F936A35752C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |access-date=2008-02-12 |work=The New York Times}} With the release of the 2001 No Doubt song "Hella Good," one Virginian transplant in California "fear[ed] the worst: nationwide acceptance of this wretched term."{{Cite news |last=David Gentry |date=May 16, 2002 |title=I Hate Hella, All Montagues, and Thee |url=http://www.readthehook.com/Stories/2002/05/16/essayonhellabygentry.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704105704/http://www.readthehook.com/Stories/2002/05/16/essayonhellabygentry.html |archive-date=July 4, 2008 |access-date=2008-02-13 |publisher=The Hook |location=Charlottesville, Virginia}}

Since the early 1990s hella has been used regularly in the Pacific Northwest as a common slang term, particularly in Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Popular area rappers Blue Scholars and Macklemore regularly use the term in their lyrics; Macklemore uses the word several times in his worldwide hit song "Thrift Shop".{{Cite web |title=Thrift Shop |url=https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/27997730/Thrift+Shop |website=lyrics.com}}

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,{{Cite web |title=Spooky Fish Recap |url=http://www.tv.com/south-park/spooky-fish/episode/2444/recap.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080322043606/http://www.tv.com/south-park/spooky-fish/episode/2444/recap.html |archive-date=2008-03-22 |access-date=2008-02-13 |publisher=TV.com}} which contributed to its currency spreading nationally.{{Cite news |last=Kristin Carmichael |date=Spring 1999 |title=Yo, yo, yo ... Catch this Slang is used to unify the masses |url=http://www.csuchico.edu/jour/catbytes/s99/slang.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724132709/http://www.csuchico.edu/jour/catbytes/s99/slang.htm |archive-date=2008-07-24 |access-date=2008-02-13 |work=CatBytes |publisher=California State University, Chico}} "You guys are hella stupid" is one of the phrases spoken by a talking Cartman doll released in 2006.{{Cite web |last=Luigi Lugmayr |date=October 28, 2006 |title=Must Have: Talking Cartman Action Figure |url=http://www.i4u.com/article6942.html |access-date=2008-02-13 |website=I4U News}} 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."{{Cite news |last=Jeremy Scherer |date=October 15, 2003 |title=Hella: Slang name for a band that's hard to pigeonhole |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=VDBB&p_theme=vdbb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0FE6CF3366EEB29E&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM |access-date=2008-02-14 |publisher=Inland Valley Daily Bulletin}}

Hella was included on the BBC's list of 20 words that sum up the 2000–2009 decade, defined as "An intensive in Youthspeak, generally substituting for the word very".{{Cite news |date=December 14, 2009 |title=A Portrait of the Decade |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8409040.stm |access-date=2009-12-14 |publisher=BBC}}

Paralleling the use of the minced oath heck, some people use hecka in place of hella. Younger school children may be required to use this form.{{Cite news |last=Chawkins |first=Steve |date=2010-07-06 |title=Physics major has a name for a really big number |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jul-06-la-me-hella-20100706-story.html |access-date=2014-04-05 |work=Los Angeles Times |quote=Sendek, who was forced to use hecka as a child...}} Church culture in Northern California also encouraged usage of hecka over hella.{{Cite news |date=April 24, 2014 |title=How To Use Hella (RE: Language & Slang) |url=https://hitrecord.org/records/1595149 |access-date=2020-04-09 |publisher=HITRECORD}}

The Prince song "U Got The Look", released in 1987 on the album Sign o' the Times, 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.{{Cite news |last=Grant |first=Sarah |date=2017-06-07 |title=Sheila E. Remembers Private Life With Prince, Wild 'Purple Rain' Parties |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/premieres/sheila-e-on-princes-wooing-wild-purple-rain-parties-w486152 |access-date=2017-06-12 |work=Rolling Stone Magazine |quote=It's an Oakland thing.}}

While intensifiers similar to hella exist in many colloquial varieties, hella is uncommonly flexible. It can be used to modify almost any part of speech, as shown below:{{Cite web |last=Skoultchi |first=Mark |date=2011-02-01 |title=Have a Hella Good Time: On Intensifiers and Antonyms |url=https://catchwordbranding.com/catchthis/blog-categories/fun-stuff/have-a-hella-good-time-on-intensifiers-and-antonyms |website=Catchword}}

• 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 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.

An online petition begun in 2010 by Austin Sendek of Yreka, California, seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 10²⁷.{{Cite news |last=Moore |first=Matthew |date=2010-03-02 |title=Hella number: scientists call for new word for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/7352204/Hella-number-scientists-call-for-new-word-for-1000000000000000000000000000.html |access-date=2010-06-04 |work=The Telegraph |location=London |quote=More than 20,000 scientists, students and members of the public have signed an online petition backing the new quantity, which would be used for figures with 27 zeros after the first digit.}} The prefix was recognized by Google in May 2010,{{Cite magazine |date=June 2010 |title=Jargon Watch |magazine=Wired |volume=18 |issue=6 |quote=...a proposed metric prefix...useful for describing mega-measurements like Earth's mass (6 Hellagrams). The International Committee for Weights and Measures agreed to consider it after a Facebook petition garnered 30,000 signatures}}{{Cite web |title=The Official Petition to Establish "Hella-" as the SI Prefix for 10^27 |url=http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Official-Petition-to-Establish-Hella-as-the-SI-Prefix-for-1027/277479937276?v=info |access-date=2010-06-04 |publisher=Facebook}}{{Cite news |last=Kim |first=Ryan |date=2010-05-24 |title=Google gets behind 'hella' campaign |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?&entry_id=64240 |access-date=2010-06-04 |work=The San Francisco Chronicle}} and Wolfram Alpha in May 2011.{{Cite web |last=Austin |date=May 31, 2011 |title=First goes Google, now goes WolframAlpha |url=http://www.makehellaofficial.blogspot.com/2011/05/first-google-now-wolfram-alpha.html |access-date=18 October 2012}} In 2013, Andrew McAfee suggested the term hellabyte with this usage.{{Cite news |last=Boulton |first=Clint |date=2013-10-07 |title=Big Data Headed For 'Hellabyte' Metric, Says Andrew McAfee |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/10/07/big-data-headed-for-hellabyte-metric-says-andrew-mcafee/ |access-date=2019-04-21 |work=The Wall Street Journal}} In 2022, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures adopted the prefix "ronna-" to represent 10²⁷, as the symbol H, commonly used to represent "hella-", is already in use in the metric system for the Henry, a unit of inductance.{{Cite journal |last=Elizabeth Gibney |date=18 November 2022 |title=How many yottabytes in a quettabyte? Extreme numbers get new names |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03747-9 |journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/d41586-022-03747-9 |pmid=36400954 |s2cid=253671538|url-access=subscription }}

• Skookum, a similar word used in the Pacific Northwest, from the Chinook Jargon
• Jawn, a similar word used in Philadelphia

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Wiktionary|hella}}

• [http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/hecka/ hecka] at the Double-Tongued Dictionary
• [http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/5420-hella-facts-about-the-word-hella Hella Facts About the Word Hella by George McIntire] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140728095459/http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/5420-hella-facts-about-the-word-hella |date=July 28, 2014 }}

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Category:1990s slang

Category:2000s slang

Category:2010s slang

Category:California culture

Category:English-language slang

Category:English words