California-isms
Every place has it's own lingo. Little colloquialisms that separate the locals from the newcomers. It's entertaining to learn to speak "Californian." The words are mostly the same, but the phrases stand out.
As the roads are a big thing here, I'll start with them. In New York, we called the roads by their names... "The Van Wyck Expressway", or "Long Island Expressway". If they only had a number they were "Route 684" or "Route 9" despite being interstates. In Florida, they just got numbers if they were roads. Sand Lake Road was just called "482". Interstates got "I" attached... "I-4" or "I-75". In California, they get "the". I drive to work on "The 101" or "The 5".
When you ask how far something is, you're answered with a question. "When are you going?". When you answer that, you get the answer in time, not distance. "At 3pm, that's about 35 minutes away." I think that's because if you found out that those 35 minutes would be spent travelling 3 miles, you might get a little down.
So... Los Angeles and Hollywood are considered SoCal. Kind of obvious. Makes total sense. But I got all sorts of laughs when I called San Francisco "NoCal". It's NorCal. Here in SoCal, we pronounce the street names in a way I didn't expect (pardon my makeshift phonetics)...
Tujunga - "ta HUN ga"
La Cienega - "la see EN iga" (I'd have said, "lah SEE in AY ga")
Sepulveda - "sip UL vidda" (not "SEP ul VEE da")
Cahuenga - "ca HUN ga" (you sure it's not "cah HWAYN ga"?)
Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, Historic Route 66 comes right through town and ends on Santa Monica Boulevard at the shore.
License plates are called license plates here. Not "tags" like in Florida. To me, a tag implies something flexible... paper or fabric. Pressed steel is a plate to me.
The train here is the "metro" (how Parisian!). In New York we had the subway and the railroad (i.e. Long Island Rail Road). Two distinct lines with two very distinct pricing structures. In Florida, we called commuter rails "wishful thinking".
In New York, you had "Kennedy", "LaGuardia", and "Newark" to choose from for airports. Long Islanders are lucky enough to have "Islip". In Florida, I'm pretty sure you have "the airport", as it's rare two are close enough for consideration. Recently, though, Orlando got the Sanford/Orlando airport. Here, it's not "Los Angeles", it's "LAX". And "Bob Hope" is simply called "Burbank." So, the airport names don't vary quite as much.
Northern Hollywood is undergoing "gentrification" at the moment. I always though of that word as "aging". But, if you take the root of the word, "gentry", and relate that back to the knights and chivalry and class, it makes sense that they use the word here to mean bringing culture and class back to the neighborhood.
I have yet to determine whether I live near mountains or hills. The best I've gotten from anyone was to say they are either huge hills or tiny mountains. I call them mountains. It's more impressive, and my ears pop going over them on the 405. Hills wouldn't cause ear-popping.
I'm sure there's loads more of these. There's probably a whole collection of things I don't even realize I'm saying that sound out of place here. In time, though, I'm sure I'll start to hear from my New York and Florida friends that I'm talking like a Californian. Oh well... when in Rome...!
As the roads are a big thing here, I'll start with them. In New York, we called the roads by their names... "The Van Wyck Expressway", or "Long Island Expressway". If they only had a number they were "Route 684" or "Route 9" despite being interstates. In Florida, they just got numbers if they were roads. Sand Lake Road was just called "482". Interstates got "I" attached... "I-4" or "I-75". In California, they get "the". I drive to work on "The 101" or "The 5".
When you ask how far something is, you're answered with a question. "When are you going?". When you answer that, you get the answer in time, not distance. "At 3pm, that's about 35 minutes away." I think that's because if you found out that those 35 minutes would be spent travelling 3 miles, you might get a little down.
So... Los Angeles and Hollywood are considered SoCal. Kind of obvious. Makes total sense. But I got all sorts of laughs when I called San Francisco "NoCal". It's NorCal. Here in SoCal, we pronounce the street names in a way I didn't expect (pardon my makeshift phonetics)...
Tujunga - "ta HUN ga"
La Cienega - "la see EN iga" (I'd have said, "lah SEE in AY ga")
Sepulveda - "sip UL vidda" (not "SEP ul VEE da")
Cahuenga - "ca HUN ga" (you sure it's not "cah HWAYN ga"?)
Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, Historic Route 66 comes right through town and ends on Santa Monica Boulevard at the shore.
License plates are called license plates here. Not "tags" like in Florida. To me, a tag implies something flexible... paper or fabric. Pressed steel is a plate to me.
The train here is the "metro" (how Parisian!). In New York we had the subway and the railroad (i.e. Long Island Rail Road). Two distinct lines with two very distinct pricing structures. In Florida, we called commuter rails "wishful thinking".
In New York, you had "Kennedy", "LaGuardia", and "Newark" to choose from for airports. Long Islanders are lucky enough to have "Islip". In Florida, I'm pretty sure you have "the airport", as it's rare two are close enough for consideration. Recently, though, Orlando got the Sanford/Orlando airport. Here, it's not "Los Angeles", it's "LAX". And "Bob Hope" is simply called "Burbank." So, the airport names don't vary quite as much.
Northern Hollywood is undergoing "gentrification" at the moment. I always though of that word as "aging". But, if you take the root of the word, "gentry", and relate that back to the knights and chivalry and class, it makes sense that they use the word here to mean bringing culture and class back to the neighborhood.
I have yet to determine whether I live near mountains or hills. The best I've gotten from anyone was to say they are either huge hills or tiny mountains. I call them mountains. It's more impressive, and my ears pop going over them on the 405. Hills wouldn't cause ear-popping.
I'm sure there's loads more of these. There's probably a whole collection of things I don't even realize I'm saying that sound out of place here. In time, though, I'm sure I'll start to hear from my New York and Florida friends that I'm talking like a Californian. Oh well... when in Rome...!
posted by Eric at 19:23
6 Comments:
Great post man! It seems like everything there begins with a "San" or "Las" or "Los". Well, at least to an Oregonian like me... :D
I have a tough time pronouncing the names of things in that area, but it helps that the area is so popular with TV and movies that I've heard a lot of them before.
Anyway, glad to see you're adjusting to things there. No more Cuban influences, like in Florida! But, now you need to worry about the inversion layer and low-emission cars :)
HA! Do you know how long it took me to pronounce "Kuykendahl"? That's a street here in Houston. I tried several times and had the local rolling with laughter. It's pronounced Kirk-en-doll. Don't ask. I don't know either.
Another is Bexar (bear) and Humble (Um -bull).
On a different note - StudHombre called me from work yesterday and wanted to know the licence plate number for one of our vehicles. Yes we call them licence plates too. Anywho I didn't know the number either so I stepped outside to look and what should I see???
The number 42. :D
I love local pronunciations and colloquialisms! I've been thinking of doing a blog on the things farmers say - they crack me up . . . my favorite at the moment: There's a hole in his screen door big enough to throw a cat through. (Speaking of someone a little slow to catch on)
-cindy
La Jolla? la hoya.
John Wayne Airport? Ontario.
The list goes on and on.
Welcome to Cali, my friend!
and for a long time, I always pronounced it "Sep-lul-vida" - boy, that makes the Cali heads spin!!
Some more for you:
every damn suburb has a street called "euclid".
don't expect the house/building numbers to follow logic - you can be in the 300 block on a main street in one 'burb, and as soon as you cross into another, all the numbers change... from 300 to, oh 12000.
and the drivers here stink!!!!
Haha you were actually right about Cahuenga though. Everyone I know around here says Ca-WAYNGA. No H. Oh and a lot of people technically consider NorCal to start north of the bay.
When i first moved here I kept saying Wil-SHIY-er... people looked at me like I had dragged a rusty nail across a chalkboard!
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