When language quirks become memes, they take on a kind of mind-virus contagiousness. Just a year or so ago, using the apopocation "Cali" when visiting the Golden State would earn you the same kind of head shakes and rolling eyes as saying "Frisco" for San Francisco. It was something that hoisted your Dork Flag high above your head and announced to those around you, "I'm not from around here!"
Seems that there is now a generational divide within the state regarding acceptability. "Cali" has quickly become a pervasive nickname among under-thirty Californians. Cali is, of course, the name of a major city in Colombia with millions of inhabitants, not a state on the West Coast of the U.S. What's a level-headed language maven to do? Stand firm and repel this ignominious diminutive? Let the virus run its course?
How many of you use the term "Cali" for California (either in writing or speaking)? How many of you find the term insufferable? Where do you live and how old are you?
I do not use it, but I accept its usage by others. I live in an undisclosed location in the United States (outside of California) and I am twenty-one years old.
Honestly? It doesn't matter to me. I don't care what they choose to call their state. I live in the Midwest but grew up in the East. I'm of an age where things like this just aren't important. Personally, I found California (south of San Francisco) to be insufferable.
I, a "Cali" resident, know nobody who uses that abbreviation. I have, however, heard people say "SoCal" for where we live, but I personally refuse to adopt that, and I believe any rational person should do likewise. (I'm also confused about where "SoCal" begins; certainly San Diego and L.A. — where I live (Santa Clarita, actually, but basically the same thing, hour-plus commute notwithstanding) — are included, but where does it extend northerly? Ventura? Oxnard? Ojai? Santa Barbara? California's a damned big state — a huge chunk of it exists north of San Francisco, even though most people don't realize Northern California is that vast.)
I've heard it, and let it pass when someone uses it, but I don't use it myself. As for the dividing line between Northern and Southern California, I think back to the maps the gas stations used to give away free to customers. California was divided in half because, being a long skinny state, it wouldn't have made sense to put the whole thing on one side of the sheet. I decided the dividing line was the point that was as far from the bottom of the "Northern" side as it was from the top of the "Southern", which turned out to be right around Fresno.
tunawrites said:
— where I live (Santa Clarita, actually, but basically the same thing, hour-plus commute notwithstanding) —
Public Radio is a very small place indeed! I lived the first ten years of my life in Newhall before it became a mere neighborhood of Santa Clarita. We moved away about the time they broke ground for Magic Mountain.