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In this weekend's @WSJ Review section: "hella" is a slang intensifier with roots in the East Bay (especially Oakland) going back for decades. Thread to follow, with more research findings! 1/
https://bit.ly/hellabz
https://bit.ly/hellabz
The search for early examples of "hella" from the Bay Area is ongoing. The @OED's entry for "hella," published online in 2002, has as its earliest citation a 1987 example from Toronto (pretty far from the East Bay!). But we can do better. 2/
As noted in @MisterSlang's @gdoslang and other sources, "hella" shows up in rap lyrics as early as the 1986 album "Raw, Uncut and X-Rated" by Oakland's own Too Short: "It was hella times, and it all was nice." 3/
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/4lctdgi
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/4lctdgi
For many more examples of "hella" in rap lyrics, see @theRightRhymes, a hip-hop historical dictionary maintained by @mattkohl. 4/ http://www.therightrhymes.com/hella/
According to @theRightRhymes, the Too Short album with "hella" was released in Nov. 1986. Slightly antedating that is an Aug. 1986 interview with members of Metallica in the San Francisco skateboarding magazine Thrasher @thrashermag. 5/ https://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/magazine/august-1986/
In the 1986 Thrasher interview, James Hetfield used "hella" twice when discussing the title track from Metallica's recently released album "Master of Puppets." 6/
https://www.thrashermagazine.com/images/image/Features/2009/1986/8608/800t/8608p70-p71.jpg
https://www.thrashermagazine.com/images/image/Features/2009/1986/8608/800t/8608p70-p71.jpg
I found the Thrasher/Metallica "hella" examples in 2016 and shared it on the @americandialect mailing list. But recently digitized sources available on @internetarchive have allowed further antedating. 7/
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2016-March/141400.html
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2016-March/141400.html
As I discuss in my @WSJ column, the Bay Area Reporter @eBARnews, a long-running weekly newspaper serving the LGBTQ community, provides several examples of "hella" in the early '80s, from an Oakland-based columnist who used the pen name "Nez Pas." 8/
As Michael Flanagan revealed in a 2015 article for @eBARnews, "Nez Pas" was known in real life as Peter Palm, co-owner (with Ralph Tate) of the Oakland bar Revol. Palmer died in 2006. 9/ https://www.ebar.com/entertainment/culture/173481
Peter Palm/Nez Pas often liked to use local slang in his @eBARnews column on the East Bay scene. He used "hella" as early as Mar. 11, 1982: "You just might be 'hella surprised!'" 10/
https://archive.org/details/BAR_19820311/page/n16/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/BAR_19820311/page/n16/mode/1up
In phrases like "hella surprised," "hella" is an adverbial intensifier. Nez Pas also used "hella" as a quantifier equivalent to "many/much," as in "'hella' contests and mucho prizes" from @eBARnews, Oct. 27, 1983. 11/
https://archive.org/details/BAR_19831027/page/n20/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/BAR_19831027/page/n20/mode/1up
But wait, there's more! "Hell of," used similarly to "hella" (meaning either "very" or "many/much"), appeared in Berkeley High School yearbooks in the early '80s. (Thanks to Peter Reitan of @EsnpcB for this discovery.) 12/
Yearbooks from Berkeley High School have been scanned and digitized by the Berkeley Public Library and are available for searching on @internetarchive. 13/
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Berkeley+High+School+%28Berkeley%2C+Calif.%29+--+Students+--+Yearbooks%22
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Berkeley+High+School+%28Berkeley%2C+Calif.%29+--+Students+--+Yearbooks%22
In the Berkeley HS yearbook for the 1983-84 school year, "hell of" tops the list of "Most Used Slang," though its use isn't explained. 14/
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1983unse/page/124/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1983unse/page/124/mode/1up
The "hell of" formulation can be found in the 1981 Berkeley High School yearbook as a "many/much"-style quantifier: "Man, there were hell of foxes at BHS this year." (h/t Robin Melnick) 15/
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1980unse/page/158/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1980unse/page/158/mode/1up
Even earlier examples of "hell of" can be found in student inscriptions in the scanned Berkeley HS yearbooks. The copy of the 1980 yearbook on @internetarchive has a note that says "We shared hell of pain together." 16/
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1979unse/page/n2/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1979unse/page/n2/mode/1up
The earliest example of "hell of" I've found is in a student inscription from the Berkeley High School yearbook for the 1978-79 school year: "Too bad you didn't go to Santa Cruz cause it was hell of live." 17/
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1978unse/page/n355/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/ollapodrida1978unse/page/n355/mode/1up
So "hell of" (likely pronounced similar to "hella") is attested as an intensifier ("hell of live") from 1979 and as a quantifier ("hell of pain") from 1980. Can anyone find earlier examples of either "hell of" or "hella" in yearbooks or elsewhere? 18/end
