How to Talk Like a Bay Area Native

ladybug8893 wants to help you go incognito as a real live San Franciscan. Are we saying that right? –Sparkitors

In case you didn’t know, the San Francisco Bay Area is the COOLEST PLACE IN THE WHOLE WORLD. Amazing food, spunky culture, our own musical movement, and inscrutable weather patterns that it takes years to fully understand—what more could you want? And to top it all off, we have something any teen would die for: slang that makes you sound instantly cool. If you want to live in the bay, but geography is uncooperative, fear not—I have a solution. The next time you move, change schools, or are just bored, try reinventing yourself as “that kid who just came here from California,” and earn yourself instant popularity. To do that, you’ll need to know the lingo. “Ooh, ooh, teach me!” you shout. “I want to try!” Of course you do. Read and learn.

The Bay = The San Francisco Bay Area. We don’t use the full name unless we’re talking to someone from out of town. “The Bay Area” is fine, and occasionally you can say SF, but “San Fran” or “Frisco” are never okay.

The City = San Francisco. Of course there are other cities in the bay (and the world), but San Francisco is THE city.

Nor Cal = Northern California. There’s something of a rivalry between NorCal and SoCal (Southern California), so don’t mix them up. (For the record, NorCal is WAY better.)

California = California. Some people say “Cali” as a joke, but it’s unwise to overdo it.

Hella. A contraction: hell + of. “Hecka” for the faint of heart. This one is really important—say it all the time, in every situation. It’s basically an awesome way to say “a lot” or “very.”

Legit. Short for “legitimate.” You probably think this is funny, but we say it all the time. Its meaning ranges from “genuine” to “awesome.”

Janky. Messed up. Like if you get on a bus with stuffing coming out of the seats, cracked windows, and a weird smell, that bus is “hella janky.”

Cutty. Dangerous and/or hard to access, but cool. Can be applied to places or situations. That awesome viewing spot on the roof of your school that you can only get to through an off-limits back stairwell? Cutty. Listening to an otherwise scary homeless person make fascinating points about classism in society? Cutty. This is a word used mostly in the city.

Sketch. Short for “sketchy,” meaning dubious, strange, or out of place. For example, that kid at school who seems to do nothing but stare at people is sketch. Parties where you don’t know anyone and there seems to be dubious substances and making out are sketch. Another way to say this is “shady.”

Yadada is short for “Yadadamean?” which originated as “You know what I mean?” It’s a little bit of a stretch, we know, but it allows you to turn five words into one. Also, it’s direct from hyphy, so we love it. What’s “hyphy,” you ask? Well…

Hyphy is not a word with an easy definition, because it’s both an adjective (meaning crazy or hyper) and a noun—the name of our very own homegrown musical movement. It has tons of its own slang, like go dumb, which means to dance with crazy energy. Defining all hyphy slang would take years. In any case, it’s pretty legit, and being able to quote at least one hyphy song will be crucial to the success of your Bay persona.

Ready to try out your new lingo? Here are some starter sentences to get you going:

“I finally saw The Dark Knight—hella legit movie!”

“Yesterday I found a hella cutty spot on the hill behind my house. It took me forever to get there, but it was worth it—yadada?”

“The school dance was okay, but it got a little sketch when someone dropped a stink bomb.”

For those of you who are freaking out because you just CAN’T HANDLE ALL THESE NEW VOCABULARIES, chill! You don’t have to use all of it at once. At any rate, these should give you a good start toward authenticating your new identity.

What's your favorite slang word?

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Enough about the talking, get to the writing: put it in a SparkNotes post!