One of the funnest parts about watching college freshman in Central Coast California is to hear their sudden revelations about the word “hella”. The Southern Californias get pissed off at the Northern Californians for using it constantly. The Northern Californias are shocked to discover that everyone doesn’t say “hella”.= Chaos ensues, and soon the So-Cal kids are converted to our evil Northern ways.
As for the duration of it’s usage, I have been using it all my short life. I still use it just as much as I did in fifth grade. It really is a hella useful word.
As per my post in the “Best Friends”/South Park song (from the “Evil Twin Cartman” episode) this is one of my fav. episodes. “Good” Cartman says “hella” about every third word and it still continues to pop up on occasion.
I had thought that they were making fun of a particular individual. So they were making fun of a whole sub-species of humans.
Woah… I had the “are you from the Bay Area?” thing pulled on me a few weeks ago. I’m in santa Barbara and in one of my sections i complained about the chalk being “hella hard” and a five minute discussion ensued… Very strange. I think I picked it up in Spokane, since nobody in St. Louis knew what the hell I was talking about…
I live in North Carolina, but I’ve never seen South Park, and I don’t remember ever hearing anyone use the word. So I suspect South Park is spreading it amongst the under-30 crowd.
