Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 10:21:40 -0800 From: Mary Bucholtz Subject: Re: hella hawkin' On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, Jesse T Sheidlower wrote: > Not entirely sure; it depends on how accurate the > transcription is. "Hella-" is an intensive prefix like > "mega-," that has been in use at least since the late > '80s. I've never heard "hawkin'" before, but I have > (rarely) encounted "honkin'" meaning roughly "exciting; > jammin', etc." Perhaps these are different realizations > of the same word. > Jesse, I'd be interested in knowing where you've heard "hella." As far as I can tell it's restricted to Northern California, esp. the Bay Area--does that fit your own observations? I wouldn't characterize it as a prefix, incidentally--what leads you to describe it this way? Mary Bucholtz Department of Linguistics University of California, Berkeley bucholtz[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]garnet.berkeley.edu