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Remember when 'hella' meant a specific number of miles?

I was driving through San Francisco last week and heard a kid say 'hella' to describe their coffee order. Back in the late 90s in Oakland, 'hella' was a NorCal thing that literally meant 100 miles in car culture. My buddy would say 'we got hella to go' when we had a 100 mile drive ahead. Now it just means 'a lot' of anything. Social media spread it everywhere around 2010 and the original meaning just faded out. Has anyone else noticed local slang losing its specific origin meanings like that?
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2 Comments
daniel_walker
Why do people gotta water down perfectly good specificity like that?
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dakotawood
dakotawood20d ago
Nah @daniel_walker it actually started in NorCal car culture way before the 90s, like 70s and 80s.
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