Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:18:20 -0800

From: Sylvia Swift madonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU

Subject: Re: hella hawkin'



From January 1996, student paper transcribing recorded conversation:



VAL: Anyways ... Ya check out that little Latin Flava' going' on at Taco

Bell? You know -- plaid, spikey hair?



JEN: He was hella hawkin'!



VAL: Whatever! (sarcastically, then laughs)



hella was familiar to me from my students. i have seen it spelled

"hella," "helluh," and "hell of"; that last spelling makes me suspect

it's a collapsed form of "hell of a." somehow a hell of a nice guy became

hella nice. i see the hecka form as a pg-rated and not

geographically-bound variant.



i mentioned this thread to a colleague who thinks she understands the

hawkin' element. she cites an llcoolj song from circa 1989 called "round

the way girl," in which hawkin' appears. the line is something like

"while the business men in suits be hawkin' you." hawkin' here means

staring at you. my colleague thinks JEN's meaning is: "he was

totally staring at you."



sylvia swift

madonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu