Young Claire Danes on Letterman and Jon Stewart

[Umbrello]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0lhMz6f ... re=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1wM_9Kp ... re=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l29Id2O2 ... re=channel

Some classic slips of the adorable and charismatic Claire. She looks like she'd be hella fun to hang out with.

[Cami A.]

I've seen these, and they are all really fun! Just curious - you said "hella" are you from the Bay Area?

[Natasha (candygirl)]

"Hella" has (quite unfortunately) spread everywhere in the last ten or fifteen years so my guess is that Umbrello is just as likely to be from outside the Bay Area!

[Cami A.]

Haha, Natasha. Thanks for the update. I'm from the silicon valley, but I attend college in southern California, and they still think it's a strange word down there. They make fun of it...When my cousin visited 5 or so years ago from New Orleans, he thought it was really funny too. He told his girl friend and she said: "Hella? What is that?! Can I say 'What the hella?'" I always thought it was such a natural word, ya know?

What I find funny is when people say "hecka" as if "hella" was some sort of curse word.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Weird. You'd think that between the No Doubt song Hella Good (2001) and the old South Park episode (1998) where Cartman insists on using the word hella because he thinks it makes him sound HELLA COOL people would be familiar with the word. Perhaps I overestimate the power of pop culture! Or maybe it's fallen off the pop culture radar.

I lived in LA and San Diego and although people did not really use the word in southern California (except as a joke to mock people from Oakland/SF), they all knew what it was.

I actually find hecka even more ludicrous than hella. One of our high school interns said it all summer, and it made me want to call her principal and beg the school to just let them say hella instead (they weren't allowed to say hella because hell is a curse word).

Hecka is hecka stupid.