Californian slang vs East Coast slang

Travis   Sun Jul 15, 2007 8:13 pm GMT
Of all of those, the only ones that are used in such a fashion here are:

Barf - To vomit
Dork - Originally slang for a penis (as used in Sixteen Candles), but eventually came to mean geek or nerd or a clumsy or eccentric person.
Dweeb - Nerd and Loser
Classic - Great
Gross - Disgusting
I'm like... - (When talking about yourself) emphasis placed on the "li" in "like."
Later! - Goodbye!
Scarf - To eat, usually very quickly (e.g., "I totally scarfed that burger!")
Sketchy - Weird/suspicious (e.g., "that guy looks sketchy"; "I dunno, you were acting kind of sketchy about [x]."
Sweet! - Used to express excitement, satisfaction, camaraderie, happiness for another person/thing/event. (e.g., Dude I like totally dicked a Betty today! Sweet!) Strong emphasis and elongation of the Es Sweet.

Even then, some of them, such as "dweeb", "sweet", and "classic" aren't used all that commonly up here, while "later" generally finds itself as part of "see ya later" rather than by itself.

The usages I've listed here are likely more widespread in colloquial North American English today, and are probably not that specifically limited to California English in practice. As for the rest of them, they seem quite weird to me myself, to say the very least.
Skippy   Sun Jul 15, 2007 11:51 pm GMT
I've never seen "outty" spelled "audi."
Travis   Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:17 pm GMT
>>That one actually confused me for a bit, because a) Audi is pronounced ["Q:4i] in my accent and b) the spelling pronunciation would be ["aU4i], while 'outty' would be ["EU4i], so I couldn't use one for the other.<<

I myself prefer the Standard German pronunciation ["aUdi:], anglicized as ["a:U4i:], even though many here'd probably pronounce it from the spelling as ["Q:4i:]. Note that none of the above would be homophonous with "outty" here, which'd be ["6U4i:], ["a_-U4i:], or ["aU4i:] depending on the speaker.
Guest 224   Mon Jul 16, 2007 5:34 pm GMT
The Ugly Cali Kid,

I totally agree with everything you said! Except the fact that you called the Orange County "stupid ass." That was a bit offensive =P but everything else was true
Sausage   Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:04 pm GMT
>>Flipping heck - Americans use the term 'wicked' to mean good, as in 'that film was wicked'??? Again I am shocked!! As with the 'kil-ah-metre' pronunciation, I'd never have imagined 'wicked' to be used in this way. Surely this is a Briticism???? <<

"Wicked" on its own as a synonym for "good" may well be a Briticism. I think the initial post to this thread made a misstatement. I have never, ever heard "wicked" used by American an American as synonymous with good. I have heard it used many times (esp. in New England) as an intensifying adjective, to modify another adjective or a noun.

So, Americans (again, mostly New Englander) will say something is "wicked good", "wicked awesome" or "a wicked pissah". But they will also say something is "wicked hahd" or "wicked retahded". I have never heard an American say someone is "wicked" where "wicked" means anything other than wicked - although I am sure it's been done on occasion.
CalforniaDude   Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:53 pm GMT
I think we need to like, add totally to this list!
Guest   Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:55 pm GMT
I've heard that RADICAL is dated slang now, but its short form /RAD/ is still used by some Californians...is it true?
Amal   Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:47 pm GMT
I am from New York and New Jersey.. and I don't use "East Coast" slang like the word "wicked." Things like that are more of a New England/Boston slang - which is totally different from New York.
Gabriel   Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:03 pm GMT
<<"Wicked" on its own as a synonym for "good" may well be a Briticism>>

Do any Americans here ever use the word "bloody" as in "I can't find the bloody keys!" I've heard it from at least two different speakers here in the US. That strikes me as even more of a Briticism.
Amal   Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:08 pm GMT
I think the only people who would say it may have picked it up from Brits/British culture individually - I don't believe it is common to any one area in the US.
Jeff, Texan in NY   Wed Aug 15, 2007 3:06 am GMT
Betty -Beautiful girl or woman (stated on the Whatever! DVD edition that the term 'betty' comes from The Flintstones character Betty Rubble)

I always though that was from the Archie comic strip, which featured Betty & Veronica.

I remember people saying "way" to mean "quite" or "really" from my childhood in rural Texas, so I'm not sure that it originated in Southern California, although undoubtedly it was popularized given momentum there. The way it was said in rural Texas, though, was more like the way it is said in the phrases "way too expensive" or "way too far" or "way over there," with stress and maybe a downward tone on "way" and the word lengthened somewhat--"He's w-a-a-a-y stupid," for instance. The California(n) slang tends to be different, with maybe an upward tone and the word not really lengthened much.
Gwest   Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:30 am GMT
<Barf - To vomit
Dork - Originally slang for a penis (as used in Sixteen Candles), but eventually came to mean geek or nerd or a clumsy or eccentric person...>

<The usages I've listed here >


Travis, please quote your sources, or you may be guilty of plagiarism:

Wiki Results for Valspeak {{unreferenceddate=June 2006 ...Dork Originally slang for a penis (as used in ''Sixteen Candles''), but eventually came to mean geek or nerd or a clumsy or eccentric person. ...
www.sheetster.com/knowledgebase/wiki_search.jsp?search=Valspeak - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
Rene   Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:37 pm GMT
I've used wicked maybe once. Bloody, definately more than once, but it's not a habit. "Blast" is a habit and I don't know how I picked it up. As for the others, never used audi, betty, monet, or dweeb, but the others are fairly common I think. I've used wanker a couple of times, but that's dfinately not a habit either. I try not to use like, but it is a definate habit and so is dude. Oh, and as a last thought, rad, radical, and tubular are so old school its not even funny.
Amal   Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:06 pm GMT
mjd - being from Jersey also, I definitely agree with the ridiculous thing!! I didn't even think of that when trying to think of NJ/NY area slang words.. because I use it so often