California accent, expressions, and common knowledge

First of all, let me warn you. This is a bit of a long-read. Kind of like reading a dictionary or a Frommer's Guide or a cookbook is a long-read. In other words, this may be a little OCD, but maybe you'll get some chuckles or recognition from it, or learn something, or otherwise find something to disagree vehemently with. By the way, this really scratches an itch for a natural list-maker (although it's never done, of course).

So you've seen the SNL skit about The Californians. Yet every Californian will argue that we don't have an accent (Those people you make fun of? That's funny but normal people don't talk like that). So I decided to dig into it a bit, mostly by watching a bunch of YouTube videos and lots of reddit discussions and a bit of personal experience, observation, and input from my friends (most of whom said Sorry, that was too long, that was work). The core question is: What characterizes a California accent and/or dialect?

A lot of the SNL skit is about how people in SoCal talk about freeways ("Brah, you take the 10 to the 5 and then up the 110."). I started to get into that but it turns out that's a long story. So I broke the whole freeway thing out into a separate post. So nothing about freeway numbers here.

So here is the remainder of my point of view about California pronunciation, idiom (words and phrases), and quirks. I split this into California-wide (and probably much more of the West), then SoCal-specific things, then NorCal/Bay Area-specific things. The latter is the largest section.

Disclaimers:

I am not a linguist. So I'm sure my observations and conclusions are sloppy but hopefully entertaining.
This is informed in part by most of a lifetime of living here, but for the parts of it that I curated and reshared from the internet, all rights and credit to the owners and original observers.
Feel free to disagree. I can't say I don't care, but unless you convince me a mistake is egregious, I probably won't do anything about it.
A post like this will inevitably be rife with biases. This reflects where and with whom I spent most of my life, and is not meant to diminish the cultural validity or authenticity of other Californians. I am aware of some but not all of these biases, including the north vs. south and coastal vs. inland bias, various shibboleths (a linguistic passport with markers that are linguistically insignificant but socially significant, distinguising "in" vs. "out"), nostalgia bias, cultural and social markers, and various regional discourse markers (the latter being, of course, the point of the post). Basically, this is my version of California. Your mileage may vary.

California-wide pronunciation

In my last draft I started with the proper pronunciation of Nevada (it's nuh-VEAH-day, veah like yeah) but Michele looked at me and said Why do you start a post about California with a pet peeve about Nevada? She had a point.

She also observed and demonstrated that pretty much none of this applies to her, despite having lived in California longer than me and in the West her entire life. But then again, she also wasn't a fan of the surfers she went to high school with. Maybe her formative years in Seattle inoculated her...

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, here's some more notes on how things are pronounced out west. Pretty much everyone in the state does these:

Dropped T

Sacramento: Sacramenno
button: Buh’un
Costco: Cahs-coh

Hard final R

there: "theirrr" not “theah” like the British say (or Americans in the 1940s)
mother: muthrrr
for sure: “fer sherrrr”

Ng-raising: A and I become long before ng

ring: rihng
bang: baeng
king: keeng
dancing: danceeng
rang: raing

A turns into “eah” before N and M (lamb, fan, ram but not bag, cash, ask, bath)

Most of the West has these mergers:

Cot and caught sound the same
So do Don-Dawn
Marry-merry-Mary
Mirror - mere
But no pin-pen merger except in Bakersfield (like in the South)

Statewide Idiom

There are some very obvious and steotypical words and expressions. Many of these have been adopted all over the US and other places where English is spoken. Not sure this is a good thing, and apparently it's California's fault.

The word Like:

As a filler word (“he said like I’m coming like later”)
Also used with conjugations of the verb to be to mean to say:

“He was like No”
“They were like what do you mean”

The verb Be all: same as Be like but younger.
- Indignant: "And I was all, 'Are you serious right now?'"
- Internal thought: "I saw the line and I was all, 'Yeah no, I'm just gonna get In-N-Out.'"
- Defensive: "So then she all 'You ghosting me?' and I'm all, 'My phone was literally dead!'"
- Physical reaction: "It got all windy and the dog was all weird and wouldn't come inside."
- You can swap back and forth between be all and be like.
The word Dude (in many uses)

General for person (“and this dude said”)
Exclamation of excitement (“Dude!”) or congratulations (“Dude!”)
Exclamation of disappointment (“Dude…” or worse, “Aww, dude”)
Exclamation of disagreement (“I mean, dude?”)
Exclamation of sympathy / apology (“Aww, dude!")
…

Surfer-talk adoption: This started on the beaches in SoCal but it was accepted basically anywhere people smoke too much weed. Some of this has faded into 80s memories with the likes of Bill & Ted, though.

Gnarly (g not pronounced) means extreme
stoked, amped: (excited)
wipeout: (fall, crash)
“Like, dude, I saw the gnarliest wipeout”

Tight can mean cool but also unfair or fucked up:

"That’s hella tight": That's cool
"Tsk, that’s tight": That's not cool

“Yeah, no” means no. “No, yeah” means yes.

“Yeah no I can’t make it”
“no yeah I’m down”
But “Yeah, no, fer sure” means definitely.
And “Yeah maybe” means no.

And like, people in California don't call it Cali. It's like super cringe, unless you are making beats and can't find anything that rhymes with California. I'm sure there are cultural nuances (like Frisco) but if a white gamer goes "Oh, you're out in Cali? That's cool", just be nice and forgive them.
Some agreed-upon place names:

LA: Los Angeles.

This is not like NY which is used only in writing. The default spoken name is "el-A". You only use the full name if you have spare time, in super formal settings ("<person X> vs. County of Los Angeles"), or if you are talking with that rare person who you're not sure knows what you mean when you say LA.
You may use Los Angeles in writing, just like you should probably avoid contractions and the word ain't.
The AP Style Guide prefers periods between L.A. (AP, however, does not want periods for themselves).
Interesting tidbit: You might have heard someone pronounce this with a hard-G, like "loss-AN-guh-less". This means it's probably someone rich and white born in the 1920s or before, or someone who wishes they were. It was taught as proper speech in private schools in the 1930s and 40s. It got bad enough that the mayor appointed a jury of experts in 1952, who officially declared the pronunciation "loss-AN-jul-ess". The hard-G pronunciation is now almost entirely extinct.

Tahoe: (TAH-hoe) The broad area roughly surrounding Lake Tahoe

It includes the towns of Truckee and South Lake Tahoe but not Reno, the nice "little" city that provides all the grown-up services for Tahoe.
In winter, "We're going to Tahoe this weekend" refers to any of the ski resorts that are in the general vicinity of the lake, such as Heavenly, Kirkwood, Palisades, Northstar, and Sugar Bowl. But not Mammoth (Mammoth is actually part of SoCal even though it's technically north of San Jose and a stone's throw from Nevada).
If you slip and call Palisades by its dead name Squaw that's like misgendering someone.
In summer, Tahoe is more specifically the lake and the stop-and-go-traffic road that runs all the way around it.

The Sierras: The Sierra Nevada mountain range that runs along the eastern part of the state

We are constantly reminded that the Sierra snowpack determines whether we will all die of thirst, or at least have drought restrictions that technically mean farmers get angry, people in the Bay Area water less and pay more, and people in LA continue to fill their pools and water their golf courses and wash their cars because long story.
The High Sierras: used interchangeably by some, but normally the highest, most rugged part of the Sierras, above the tree line (there are over 100 peaks over 13,000 feet). You would use this term only if you are a rock climber or serious hiker or something, to differentiate it from the Prius-accessible parts of the Sierras.

Vegas: Las Vegas
Back East: Anywhere east of roughly the Rocky Mountains, but usually the East Coast
The fly-over states: (not nice) the vast part of the US that makes it time-consuming to go Back East
Cabo: (CAH-bo) Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

The perfect place for people who want to visit Mexico without the inconvenience of leaving Southern California.
Make sure you don't miss the timeshare presentation. Oh wait. Never mind, good luck trying to miss that.
A great place to feel authentic while paying $25 for a craft mezcal cocktail at Señor Frog's. And with a Costco.
The views of El Arco and the sunsets are amazing. Enjoy them while the undertow is trying to drag you to South America.

Baja: (BAH-ha) Baja California, Mexico (the peninsula below California that consists of two Mexican states, BCN and BCS). Cabo is on the southern tip of Baja.

Soft drinks are sodas not pop (Chicago) or Coke (the South)

"You wanna soda?”

The name of the state next to California (with which we have a 400-mile border) is Nevada. That's pronounced Nuh-VEAH-duh, not Ne-VAH-dah. Thank you. It's not a tomato, tomahto thing, it's right vs. wrong.

they

The decision mechanism most of the country calls rock-paper-scissors is called Ro sham bo here (there are other spellings, including the fake French one Rochambeau). And you make your choice on the third shake. It's especially annoying when there’s people who add an extra count, like “rock, paper, scissors, shoot”
"We need the rain." What people in California say when they actually really hate that it's raining and they can't drive in it for shit but they are trying to be good about it.

atmospheric river

Pineapple Express

There is also some general cowboy idiom that is now being used by normal people throughout the west when they want to sound folksy, like “mosey on down” and “buckaroo”. You kinda sound like a dork when you use this non-ironically. Although I suppose "I'm gonna mosey on down there and check it out" seems ok, now that I think about it.

And similarly, there are general expressions that were apparently adopted from West Coast harbors but that are now in general use: "happy as a clam"; "clam up"; "even keel".

Related: Things everyone knows

DMV: Where you go with an endless amount of patience waiting for your number to be called.
CHP: The Highway Patrol. Tend to be concentrated in places like King City where, unless you are stopping for lunch, you might be tempted to drive too fast. Also frequently seen on 17 which is probably a good thing because people are idiots.
Animal Style: technically a secret menu term from In-N-Out, it's now generalized cultural idiom for adding grilled onions, extra sauce, etc. to burgers or fries.

And a few weather-related expressions everyone knows:

The Marine Layer: Also called fog.

Although people here call it fog, it doesn't hang at ground level like fog everywhere else in the world. It's mostly just low clouds and cold, the swirling mass of cold air that moves inland from the Pacific because it is attracted by hot rising inland air, creating a natural air conditioning along the coast. Can make the temperature drop by 40 degrees in minutes.
Not to be confused with Tule fog (TOO-ley), which is actual fog, but that happens in the Central Valley in winter. That stuff is gnarly, it stays pinned close to the ground, sometimes for days, and can reduce visibility to less than 10 feet, not fun if you are trying to drive.

Storm: Rain.

This can be confusing, because any time there is even the slightest chance of rain, it's called a storm. There is no separate word for an actual storm (i.e., the windy type). We don't normally get hurricanes or typhoons or tornadoes. Thunderstorms are rare in most of the state. So when it's actually going to be windy, they have to describe it in a convoluted way, like high wind warning or small craft advisory or something like The Santa Anas will be kicking in.

Atmospheric River: More rain.

Hyperbole introduced by weather forecasters trying to get attention for weather in a place that rarely has any. Basically means there's going to be a lot of rain, which they like to show in animations with twirly streams coming from the Pacific.

Pineapple Express: More rain.

And probably sucky snow. A specific type of Atmospheric River that brings heavy tropical moisture from like Hawaii, leading to major winter rain but that doesn't much help the snow pack because it's relatively warm.

Winter storm warning: Snow.
Bluebird day: Sunshine after snow. Opposite of whiteout. Perfect.
Sierra cement: The heavy, wet snow common in the Sierras.
Chain controls: More snow. Probably enough that driving will be a pain in the ass on Donner Pass.

And while we are on winter storms: a bit of historical stuff every kid in California knows:

The Donner Party: Bunch of cannibals who ignored a winter storm warning and got stuck in the snow around what is now Donner Lake for most of the winter of 1846-1847, before the age of chain controls. They ran out of food, so...
49ers:

The greatest team in football
The original gold-diggers who came in massive numbers during the Gold Rush of 1849. Led to California statehood (1850), Levi Strauss Co (1853), Wells Fargo (1852), and San Quentin (1852).

Junipero Serra and the padres: Founded the first 9 of 21 missions starting in San Diego in 1769, each about a day's ride apart on horseback, connected by El Camino Real (The Royal Road), going all the way up to Sonoma (1823). The string of missions formed a colonial religious network that permanently reshaped California's culture and geography, architecture, and population.

Every kid in California did a 4th grade "mission project" where they had to build one of these out of like sugar cubes.
Nowadays, they also learn about all the bad things that happened to the Native Californians because of the missions.
Junipero Serra has become controversal of late, like many historical figures. He's technically a saint, but the state blew up his statue along 280 while keeping the freeway named after him.
Interesting tidbit: The northernmost of the missions, the one in Sonoma, is about a day's ride from the southernmost outpost of Russian Alaska, Fort Ross, established by Ivan Kuskov in 1812 and sold to John Sutter in 1841.

This John Sutter was a Swiss settler who had a vast Mexican land grant called New Helvetia. He founded Sutter's Fort in 1839, which later became Sacramento. He had a sawmill (Sutter's Mill) on the South Fork of the American River, where his carpenter James Marshall found gold in 1848, starting the Gold Rush.

Both James Marshall and John Sutter died pretty much penniless, losing their land claims against the hundreds of thousands of 49ers who flooded in.
Also, apparently Marshall didn't yell "Eureka!" (adopted as the state motto in 1849). He is reported to have said instead, "Boys, I believe I have found a gold mine."

OK so much for universals; back to accents and idiom.

Note that California English has a pretty generic western American pronunciation, and you'd have a hard time telling it apart from Oregon, Washington, or Nevada. But there are definite large social and cultural variations and influences, depending on the neighborhood you find yourself in.

The most notable regional differences are between SoCal and NorCal (particularly San Francisco, Sacramento, and the Bay Area). And then in parts of the Central Valley (Bakersfield, Visalia, etc.) there are remnants of a Dust Bowl twang (read your Grapes of Wrath if you want to learn more).

SoCal-specific pronunciation and idiom

SoCal (which newscasters in LA call the Southland but everyone else calls Southern California as if it's a state, which it easily could be) is the origin of the stereotypical but not typical California accent. It comprises the greater LA and San Diego area, the bottom third of the state roughly below the line from Santa Barbara to Vegas. There is some friendly and some less-than-friendly rivalry with the rest of the state, and even internally. They don't seem to notice any of this; they think everyone loves them. Admittedly, they have a lot of people (~24M, more than half the population of California) and they're surrounded by mountains so you can forgive them for developing their own language.

SoCal pronunciation:

Vocal fry: insufficient airflow makes the low-register vowels sort of creak

“today is Tuesday” ([Tues-dayhhhhy]
Fry would be pronounced like something got caught in the back of your throat: [frihhhh]
Imagine Elizabeth Holmes in slo-mo, if you remember who she is.

Uptalk: where they raise the final word in every sentence, like making everything sound like a question

“I’m looking forward to having a party? And having everyone over?”

Vowel shift

big → beg
milk → melk
leg → lag
back → buck
basket → bosket
bug → buhg
really → rally

Goose shift, a.k.a. U-fronting

Goose

Dude: Duuhd / Dewd, not Dood
moon: muhn

Goat-fronting

goat

Totally becomes "Te-ohtally"
No sounds like "nuh-oh"

SoCal idiom:

SigAlert: the freeway is a particular hellhole right now

“There’s a SigAlert on the 10”: like don’t go

Surface streets: local roads (when the freeways are too jammed up)
E-ticket: the most exciting or top-tier attractions. Originally from Disney's 1959–1982 ticket book system (where A-E coupons were used). So if you use it with someone from outside of SoCal who is under 60, they will have no idea what you are talking about. But in LA and the OC, the term has cross-generational staying power.
The Santa Anas: hot dry winds from the Mojave in the east that make for fire weather.

Diablo winds

Sports:

LA has some of the greatest sports teams in all of sports. They have won 31 major league championships, have hosted the summer Olympics twice (1932 and 1984) with the 2028 Olympics coming up, and between UCLA and USC they hold 236 NCAA team titles. This creates resentment all over, but you gotta give it to them - they do sports well.

The Dodgers play at Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine. They have won the World Series 9 times, including the two most recent ones.
The Lakers have won 12 NBA titles since coming to LA in 1960.
LA has a bunch of other good teams:

Galaxy

Rams

Kings

Angels

Sparks

Ducks

And San Diego has the Padres (MLB) who are decent.

LA has a history of ~~taking~~ attracting teams from other cities because it is a huge market with loyal fans who fill the seats:

The Dodgers from Brooklyn
The Lakers from Minneapolis (hence the name)
The Clippers from San Diego
The Chargers from San Diego
The Raiders from Oakland, then losing them back to Oakland, then Vegas getting them from Oakland (where LA people help fill the seats)
The Rams from Cleveland, then losing them to Saint Louis, then getting them back

The Angels used to be the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels, now the LA Angels, all without moving stadiums (still in The Big A in Anaheim).
UCLA plays at the Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, which is 25 miles from their campus.
USC plays at the Coliseum.

UCLA and USC hate each other even more than others hate them (if that's possible). Their cross-town rivalry culminates in Hate Week and the game for the Victory Bowl.

SoCal geography:

The LA Basin: Most of the greater LA metropolitan area (the main urbanized footprint including downtown, East LA, the South Bay, the Westside, and most of Orange County north of San Clemente). Basically anything except the surrounding valleys and mountains.
The Valley: San Fernando Valley (where valley girls are from)

Going over the hill:

The Valley

the LA Basin

The OC: Orange County
The Sunset Strip or the Strip: the 1.5-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.
The South Bay: area around Torrance
South Central: large region south of Downtown. Officially renamed "South Los Angeles" by the city in 2003 because they had some gnarly riots there, for example after the whole Rodney King thing way back when.
LAX: (L-A-X) the main airport although there are lots of others like Burbank, Orange County (technically SNA which stands for Santa Ana, or John Wayne), Long Beach, and Ontario
The Bay: the Bay Area, anywhere up north
TJ: Tijuana, Mexico (border town across from San Diego)
The Channel Islands: a group of eight islands off the coast of Santa Barbara and LA
Catalina: (cat-a-LEE-nah) Santa Catalina

Channel Islands

Catalina Express

WeHo / NoHo: West Hollywood and North Hollywood
IE: Inland Empire, a huge area way east, around Riverside and San Bernardino, still part of the LA metropolitan area.
Magic Mountain: Amusement park close to the end of the world, but home to the roller coasters your parents were afraid of when you were a kid.
The Grapevine: Technically the end of the world, where the 5 descends into whatever lies north. Home to frequent gnarly jack-knifed big rigs, snow closures, and other unreal traffic snarls. And a lot of CHP.

La Jolla (HO-yah)
Ojai (OH-hi)
Camarillo (cah-mah-REEH-yo)
Sepulveda (suh-PULL-vuh-duh)
San Ysidro (ee-SEE-dro)
Santa Ysabel (IZ-ah-bell)
Port Hueneme (port why-NEE-mee)
Lompoc (LAHM-poke), San Luis Obispo (san-LOU-so-BIS-po), Paso Robles (PEH-soh-ROH-bless) (yeah these are Central Coast)
And a few curve balls:

San Pedro (San PEE-dro) (Gotta love that one, see if you were paying attention)
El Segundo (gun not goon)
Los Feliz (los-FEE-liss not fay-LEEZ)
Rodeo Drive (ro-Day-oh)

NorCal-specific pronunciation and idiom

While I've been using NorCal, we normally just use Northern California, again as if it's a state of its own. But up here we do use SoCal rather than Southern California to talk about LA and beyond, and then you'd use NorCal in contrast with that, to keep things parallel.

Northern California is really not the northernmost part of the state; in fact, when you talk about that, you'd have to go with something like Far Northern California or something descriptive like up around Shasta or up near Oregon to distinguish it from the Bay Area and Sac and the Sierras and Tahoe and stuff, which already own the name Northern California.

And technically it is really Western California as NorCal comprises most of the area west of the line from Reno down to Santa Barbara, but I've never heard anyone call it that. Maybe we can start a trend.

Northern California Pronunciation (i.e., normal American):

We talk pretty fast so words and place names get compressed

Bay Area: Bearia
Santa Cruz: SANacruz
San Rafael: SanrafEL
would you: wooja
right on: ridawn

It's also a bit nasal, a bit down to earth. It's northern but not like Minnesotan or Canadian. And we drop a lot of g’s in ng:

Trying to: tryna or “China”
"I'm China ride my bike more"

Examples of how things are pronounced correctly:

Apricot: APE-ricott
Pecan: old people in NorCal will say PEE-conn rather than puh-CON
Details: DEE-tails
Decade: DECK-ade
Newton: NOOT-n
Tourist: TER-ist (I could give another example that sounds like that but I don't want to get flagged)

Mergers:

Cow - Cal sound the same
Taos, towels are close
Close, clothes are close
Wear, ware
We’re - Weir
There, their, they’re
meet, meat
Barry, berry
wok, walk

Idiom:

The word “hella”

"There’s hella shrimp in there"
"He lookin hella hurt"
“Hellsa” is east/north bay

Karl: the fog in SF

“Karl’s back”:

More local choice of idiom:

Dope: 80s for cool, tight
Moded: 80s-90s for burned, in your face, proven wrong

“Moded - corroded - booty exploded”

Out of pocket: way out of line, inappropriate
Cattin out: going crazy. Or flaking.

“Don’t go cattin out on me”
“He’s cattin out”
“That dude’s a total cat”

Crawdad not crayfish, crawfish, etc. (this is much broaded than just NorCal)
Tanbark: wood chips mulch
Apparently Dutch crunch is not common outside the Bay Area, other than in Holland where it's from (hence the name). And it's called tiger bread everywhere else.

sourdough

The BART: Bay Area Rapid Transit (train system that connects most of the East Bay to the city and goes down to the airport).

“I BART to work”

CalTrain ("the" optional): Train system that runs from the city up and down the Peninsula.

"I'm taking the Caltrain to the game, I don't want to sit in traffic."

Muni ("the" optional): The city's municipal transit system

"I'm taking the Muni to the Mission."
Muni includes buses, light rail, cable cars but those are mostly for tourists, historic streetcars that run on certain lines, and an underground metro part that runs under Market.
The bus part of Muni is just the bus which includes trolleys (trolley buses). Unless you're outside the city, then you can include it with the rest of Muni.
The light-rail part of Muni is always called Muni unless you are talking about a specific line like the J Church.

Earthquake weather: A myth that hot, calm, windless days can predict or trigger earthquakes.

It didn't help that the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake struck on an unusually hot, still day during the World Series between two Bay Area teams.

Fire weather: Not a myth. Happens every year - low humidity, high temps, strong winds, dry fuel.

Diablos

Santa Anas

Microclimate: overused term to indicate that it can be 50 degrees here, 70 two blocks away, and 90 on the other side of the hill.
Spare-the-Air Day: Bay Area alert when air quality is predicted to be particularly shitty. Usually caused by soot (in winter or during wildfires) or smog (summer).

Means it's illegal to burn wood, barbecue, light fireplaces, etc.
People are also encouraged to carpool, work from home, use transit, etc.

Startup idiom: Everyone around here knows what these mean:

Stealth mode
They dropped a release
Options, RSUs
Round
Raise
They went public, they went IPO
They launched

These original tech terms seem to have snuck into everyday vernacular. Obviously this can be a much longer, and even more annoying list:

Bandwidth
Take it offline
...

Very local slang: Your mileage may vary, and some of this is pretty niche, age-specific, etc.:

Yadidamean: you know what I mean
Slap: anything good (originally music)

“This beat slaps”

Smack: good or distinct (only for food)

“This burrito hella smacks”

Perked: drunk
Cutty: doing something kinda sketchy, on the DL:

“be cutty about it”

Cuddy: your homie (pronounced the same way)
Finna: fixing to - about to, going to
You trippin: You have no idea what you're talking about
Bippin: breaking into cars.

“They were bippin in the parking lot"

Yee (elongated for excitement): yes
Gas: high quality

“That taco truck is gas”

Sports:

Of course, the only football team that matters is the Niners who play at Levi's. There are people who still like the Raiders even though they have abandoned their home and their fans at the Coliseum (the ColloSEEum) twice now (three times, if you count the time they left the LA Coliseum).
Baseball is the Giants (t’Gi’nts) and they used to play at Candlestick, the Stick, AT&T, or PacBell Park. Now the Giants technically play at Oracle or Oracle Park although I still have a hard time getting myself to say that. And of course Oracle is just a new name for AT&T, or PacBell Park but not for the Stick. Some people still like the A's who got tired of playing in and empty, aging ColloSEEum so now they play in a still-empty minor-league park in Sac hoping that when they finally move to Vegas they may fill a ballpark some day.
The Warriors used to play at the Oakland Arena (which is technically the Oakland Coliseum Arena) and now play at Chase. The Sharks play at the Sharktank or at the Sapcenter.
Big Game (no "The"): The annual football game between Stanford and Cal.

"Do you have Big Game tickets?"
"Stanford has won Big Game 67 times, Cal 54 times, and there have been 11 ties."

The Play: Controversial finish to Big Game in 1982 when Cal lateraled the ball five times (two of which were forward) and scored after their player had had his knee down and was whistled down (on the third lateral) and the Stanford Band had entered the field. Stanford-version score: 20-19. Cal-version score: 25-20. I suppose nobody cares anymore.

NorCal Geography:

San Francisco may be referred to as the city (“t’sittee”) or as “SanfSISco” but not as Frisco (although that varies by ethnicity) or SF. And only SanFran if you are a flight attendant based somewhere else.
The airport is SFO or just the airport even though technically there are others, some of which believe they are important too. For example, there are SanoZAY and Oakland (Oakland can be used interchangeably for the town and the airport).
Oakland (the town, not the airport) can be the town but not if you live more than 10 miles away, then you're trying too hard.
UC Berkeley is UC or Cal. And the city where it is at is BURK-ley not Barkley or Ber-ke-ley. Herb Caen called it Bezerkeley. The Flats and The Hills are the two parts of Berkeley.
The Bay: San Francisco Bay. Not Monterey Bay. Not ever used as a synonym for The Bay Area (except in SoCal, of course).

"It's across the Bay": It's in the East Bay
"You can take the Hornblower out on the Bay, it's kind of cool"
To refer to the area, it's the Bay Area, or just Up North or Back Home if you happen to be visiting Down South.

More place names:

the Richmond, the Sunset, the Marina, the Haight, the Castro, the Mission, SoMa, Gol’gatepark, the De Young, the avenues (these are their official names)
Mount Tam (technically Mount Tamalpais but you are excused if you can't pronounce the part past Tam)
The Waldo tunnel (now called Robin Williams Tunnel)
Devil’s Slide (now also a tunnel but used to be a part of Highway 1 that slid into the ocean every winter)
South City: South San Francisco
“It’s over on Divis” - it’s on Divisadero

(you better have lived in the city for a long time if you ever let that pass your lips)

Big concerts are at the Civic or the Greek or at Shoreline or maybe at Chase or another arena or stadium.
The Peninsula: anything south of t’city and north of Sanozay
The South Bay: anywhere south of about Palo Alto and Milpitas
Down South: anywhere south of roughly Salinas, but usually Southern California
The East Bay: anywhere across a bridge other than the Golden Gate

(roughly the area bounded by the Sacramento River, the Bay, the Santa Clara County line around Milpitas, and the hills around the Altamont pass east of Livermore)

The North Bay: somewhere up near Vallejo

the North Bay

Sac: Sacramento
The Valley: Silicon Valley (only to describe where people work)

And no, the city is not part of the valley, but some companies in the city are.
“'I work in the Valley.' 'Where do you live?' 'On the Peninsula'”

This is not a contradiction. It could mean you live and work in the same town.

“'I work in the valley.' 'Where do you live?' 'In Sanozay'”

So yeah no Sanozay is not the capital of Silicon Valley (their self-proclaimed motto), but lots of companies in Sanozay are part of the valley.
The valley has no capital but its center of gravity is a bit northwest of Sanozay.

Over the hill: Santa Cruz-specific for the South Bay

To the beach: Over the same hill, from the perspective of a South Bay person
People from over the hill think they're still more or less at home when they're at the beach, but they're not, they're considered tourists, not locals.

Altamont or Altamont Pass: Big hill at the far end of the East Bay, part of the commute from hell.

The place where 580 leaves the Bay Area into the Central Valley, that place with all the windmills.
Notorious for a music festival in the 60s that went south rather dramatically when someone had the brilliant idea to use the Hells Angels for security.

Proper pronunciations for NorCal places:

SF Streets:

Clement: CleMENT
Vallejo: ve-LAY-ho
Arguello: Ar-GWEL-o
Gough: Goff
Kearny: KER-nee
Valencia: va-LEN-cha
Duboce: doo-BOSE (rhymes with dose)
Sansome: SAN-sum
Guerrero: get-RARE-oh

Vallejo (ve-LAY-ho) is also a town across the Carquinez Bridge.

Bear Flag Revolt

San Jose: one word, San-oh-zay.

San José

El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe

Ghirardelli (GEE-ruh-DEL-leeh, the G like in geezer not giraffe)
Noe Valley (NOH-wee-VAL-lee)
Bernal Heights (BURR-null)
Marin (muh-RIN)
Petaluma (petta-LU-muh)
Santa Rosa (SAN-na-ROH-sah)
Point Reyes (point-RAYS not RAY-us)
Vacaville (VACK-uh-vill)
Rodeo (little town near the Carquinez Bridge): ro-DAY-oh (like the street in Hollywood).

Rodeo Beach

Benicia (buh-NEE-sha)
Concord (CON-curd)
Suisun (suh-SOON)
Lodi (LOH-di)
San Joaquin (San like Man, wah-KEEN)
Yosemite (yoh-SEM-mi-dee)
Tulare (too-LAIR-ee)
Tuolumne (too-ALL-um-ee)
Del Norte County (del-NORT)
Butte County (byoot)
Ukiah (you-KI-yah)
Los Banos: lohs BAN-ohss, not Los Baños (BAHN-yohs)

(apparently because typewriters didn't have the ñ character when the city was chartered in 1907)

Los Gatos: los-GEH-dos

The Cats

OK, so now you're an expert. Thanks for making it all the way through. Up next: freeways.

Search This Blog

Rants and raves