I’ve been thinking about this answer, and while I stand by it, I have to admit that there is one very large grain of truth in what Troy McCluresaid. There is one major geopolitical difference between L.A. and S.F., and that is that L.A. the city is not coextensive with L.A. the county. Far from it. The county is something on the order of 4500 square miles, while the city proper is only about 450. So while nobody from San Juan Capistrano or Santa Barbara would say that they’re from L.A., there’s hundreds of places in L.A. County–both incorporated and unincorporated areas, not part of L.A. city but still, in a way, L.A. People from there might well say they’re from L.A.
You also have to remember that it’s a lot easier to say you are from L.A. than to say you are from, say, Calimesa, and then spend the next 5 minutes explaining exactly where Calimesa is. To anybody outside of the Golden State, Calimesa is L.A. (Even if it is 75 miles away.) Saves time for everybody to just say L.A.
silenus, you’re absolutely right. While I actually DID grow up in the city of LA, we moved at some point to Redondo Beach. Depending on my audience, I still said LA, because who the fuck knew where Redondo Beach was? (Okay, that’s not that obscure, but you know what I mean.)
I think what we’ve learned in this thread is that even amongst the Southern Californians, no one seems to agree on Southern California-isms. All generalizations are WRONG! 
I805 splits off from I5 (“The Split”) in San Diego’s North County and rejoins I5 just north of the Mexican border. That makes it a loop. That’s why it has an even number in the hundreds column.
Shit, Greg. I just realized I never responded to you. Oops. :eek:
Exactly.
“Hey, where are you from?”
“Antelope Acres.”
“Where’s that?”
“About 15 miles NW of Lancaster.”
“Where’s THAT?”
:rolleyes:
“LA”.
Heh. My dad retired to Lancaster, and I’m amazed at the number of people in San Diego who haven’t even heard of it. They think he moved to Pennsylvania!
I’ve never heard of it. I probably would’ve thought he moved to Pennsylvania.
I moved to Lancaster from San Diego when I was 15. Graduated from Quartz Hill High.
Lancaster is next to Palmdale, where SR-71s and L-1011s and the Space Shuttles were built. It’s near Edwards Air Force Base, where the Space Shuttle landed after the early flights, and where Chuck Yeager broke the ‘sound barrier’. Also nearby is Mojave, where Burt Rutan designs his fantastic airplanes; including the Long EZ (John Denver dies in one) and the Voyager, which was the first airplane to fly around the world unrefueled. The Antelope Valley and Western Mojave Desert was the stomping grounds of the famed aviatrix Florence Lowe ‘Pancho’ Barnes. It’s a fascinating area, really.
Ah, yes, I know where you’re talking about now.
Quartz Hill…my high school beat you guys for the CIF championship back in '90. Not that I had anything to do with that. I’d never known exactly where that was.
I give him my sincerest condolences.
The Highwayman had to deal with this alot. When he went to UCLA. With people from Valencia, for crying out loud.
“Lancaster, is that like by Victorville?”
“Uh, kinda, I guess.”
Nope, they’re Lancas-ter, not Lan-caster, as those hoity-toity Pennsylvanians never tire of reminding me. 
Johnny, I used to launch into the aerospace history bit. It works if you’ve run into someone into that, otherwise not so much. Unless they’ve seen “The Right Stuff”. Then it’s easy.
Believe me, I don’t know what drove him out there (well, his brother lives out there and works at Edwards) because I can’t imagine living out there myself.
He did, however, sell a one bedroom condo in Playa del Rey and managed to buy a 3 bedroom house out there. I’m sure that was part of the appeal.
Hell, they’re on roadtrips all the time anyway. What does he care! (man I wish I was retired)
Hey guys, Lancaster isn’t the end of nowhere. The twin cities of Lancaster and Palmdale are all one big community with a combined population of 260,000 (2004)
No it isn’t the end of nowhere, but you can see it from there.
D&R
As to the proper pronunciation of the name “Sepulveda”, I believe it is pronounced correctly. IIRC the original Sepulveda family spelled the name with an accent grave, or umlaut, or whatever the hell it’s called, over the “u”.
Can anyone knowledgeable in local history back me up on this?
Apropos of absolutely nothing, years ago I worked as a clerk in the probate master calendar court. We handled a ton of cases every morning, and it was customary to let lawyers engaged in trial elsewhere or visiting LA go to the head of the line. This usually resulted in one or two lawyers getting a break, and none of the others in the courtroom had a problem with this.
One morning a young attorney asked for priority because he was from out of town. The judge asked where he was from. With utmost sincerity, he replied, “Beverly Hills, your honor.”
Much hooting and unseemly laughter from the rest of the attorneys, and a big grin from the judge, who gently suggested that Beverly Hills, ten miles from downtown LA, didn’t exactly qualify for “out of town.”
It’s pronounced in an entirely American English way. If the Sepulvedas were Anglo Americans (which I doubt given the umlaut), it may be pronounced right. But if they were Hispanic, which I assume from the spelling of the name, the pronounciation would be more like say-pool-VAY-dah (or seh-paul-VEH-duh at the worst).
Yet in many other ways it couldn’t be further away.
You try telling someone where Tehachapi is. There’s a reason why they sell bumper stickers here that say “Where the hell is Tehachapi?”.
“I’m from Tehachapi.”
“Where the hell is Tehachapi?”
“Between Bakersfield and Lancaster, on the 58. 20 miles from Mojave.”
-blank stare-
“About 100 miles north of LA. 2 hours if traffic isn’t bad.”
“Oh, okay.”
As for SoCal-isms, when I moved out of state and around the US for a while, people always looked at me funny if I refered to a lot of something as a grip of something.
I’ve noticed that phrase is more popular (here) among males of Asian descent just over age 18 than just about any other population. Rumor has it that “grip” has roots in the San Francisco Asian-American community.
You may be correct…but I’m female, caucasian, 24 now, and I still use it, and picked it up from my mostly caucasian peers in high school.
Heck, when I visited a friend down at UCLA, they had dorm arguments over it – you said “a grip” if you were from SoCal, and “hella” if you were from NorCal.