Learning to Speak Californian
The Language of California
California Speak. Learning to speak Californian. Just how do you learn the new language, once you arrive in California? How do you sound like the locals without drawing too much attention to yourself? Want to fit in? Read more of it below.
Everything gets shortened in LA. We live in Santa Monica (SM), California (CA), which is north of San Diego (SD) and southeast of Santa Barbara (SB). West Hollywood is WeHo, pronounced like us “we” and “ho”, like a prostitute. NoHo (North Hollywood) means you don’t pay for sex – just kidding, I’m sure some people do. There is no SoHo. NoMo is north of Montana Avenue, where you have by birth more money than south of Montana (there is no SoMo). Beverly Hills is BH and Palos Verdes is PV. CPT is Compton (heard it in a rap cop-killer song).
Only tourists go to Marina Del Rey; locals go to the Marina, as if there was only one marina. There are many piers and boardwalks on SM Bay but if a friend tells you, “We’ll meet at The Pier and then we’ll chill on The Boardwalk”, you should go to the Santa Monica pier and no other. From there, it’s only a short walk to Venice, where The Boardwalk is. If you have to ask which pier, you won’t be chillin’ tonight.
UCLA is an acronym, like UWO or UBC, but the University of Southern California becomes not USC but simply “SC”, not to be confused with South Carolina where another dialect prevails.
If you don’t know what the PCH is (Pacific Coast Highway), clearly you’re not from SoCal (Southern California). The OC is not a television series. It used to be a citrus growing area called Orange County, and it is never “OC”, always “The OC”. The Valley is the San Fernando Valley, not to be confused with the San Bernardino Valley (over the next mountain range, and only “San Bernardino”, no “Valley”) where they make 90% of the world’s porn.
This way of speaking never really caught on in NorCal or SF but don’t dare say “Frisco” or you’re not from California at all – “SanFran” is the correct parlance. “Welcome to California, now turn around and go home” says the bumpersticker.
Many of these acronyms and shortened words are actually spoken and not only written.
Other places too have accents, different usage and ways of speaking. Calispeak is not an accent; indeed Californian English lacks a Bostonian, Jersey or Texan identifier. It’s a trend, a fashion and highly influential. Listen to the anchors on network TV and listen to the real-life Valley girls.
Internet, iPod, Frisby. Calispeak is a dialect and, like many things Californian, it will become North American. And like many things, there’s good and bad (“I was, like, driving to work, when, like, this guy, like, cuts me off, …”). I sure as hell hope she WAS driving, and not “like” driving.
Chill and kick it.
Photo courtesy of Zuma
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actually, there *is* an accent to go along with calspeak, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_English
you can identify it if you know what youre looking for, though since most people dont know, it goes by unnoticed, unlike say, a boston/new york/ or texan.
dont know about any real life valley girls anymore though, seems that theyve all grown up
I’ve heard arguments that America boasts such a grand a diversity in culture and landscape that foreign travel is ‘unnecessary.’ According to these folks, the world is at our doorstep and there’s no need to travel beyond our borders to have a global experience.