If taking about the animal, yes, it could mean mountain lion. If taking about a woman, it means a lady who romantically gets together with much younger men
Californian native who lived in Colorado for a long time; cougar is a large wild cat (Colorado). Also an older woman with a taste for young men (East *and* West Coast).
Gnarly is used to describe a kind of wound. A compound fracture is gnarly, a bruise is not. A wipeout being gnarly means it injured you significantly. Using gnarly instead of intense to describe a wipeout that didn't injure you drives me the same crazy that people who use literally incorrectly
I grew up with the word "duff" to mean one's rear end. To use it in a sentence, I'd say, "Get up off your duff and start helping!" Cougar certainly means a big cat native to North America, but the slang version, which is what I thought you were going for in this video, is a woman who has reached middle age who dates younger men.
I've heard it used that way too all my life, but I think in this case (California) it would be like the movie The Duff where Duff means Designated Ugly Fat Friend - DUFF.
Right. Duff means "prat". My mom used to talk about certain comic actors (Jerry Lewis, or whoever) who would do prat falls (meaning they fell on their butts). And duff does indeed mean butt. The butt has a lot of synonyms.
I'm waiting for Laurence to discover that the eastern parts of Washington and Oregon are arid semi-desert climates extremely different than the stereotypical rainy and grey Seattle. I seem to recall he's been to Idaho as well, and southern Idaho is very similar.
Washington state features every type of climate of the continental US all in one place: desert, coastal, the only rainforest in the northern hemisphere… it’s the most amazing place on Earth.
Considering how Laurence approached the cougar question, I think he is familiar with the slang, and was legitimately unfamiliar with the actual animal. It's a mountain lion to me.
Whatever one wants to call them, remaining unfamiliar with them is optimal, at least on an up-close-and-personal while out hiking, jogging, or bicycling basis...
@@CaptainHightop No, it comes from the notion that her body is hot and her face is scary. It's an insult. I wouldn't repeat it to women unless they bring it up in a positive way.
Again, with reference to the cat name and not the woman slang, cougar comes from French. Makes total sense that it would spread down from French Canadian trappers into Washington, then Oregon, which had a long "trapper" history.
"Dank" has an interesting turnaround of meanings. Originally dark, then dark, damp and mildewy, as in "The dank smell of the disused cellar". From there to anything strongly and not particularly pleasantly odoriferous, which was then assigned to a high grade of a vegetable substance not normally eaten in salads. from there it took the meaning of a high grade of anything, and then just generally good.
@@luelladiaz109 I think because when your herbs are really good, you can smell the moisture on it, meaning high quality. So "dank memes" can by association mean "high quality" memes because high moisture=high quality.
@@antilogism Yeah, guess you missed it. I'm only a few years younger than you and we (along with people older than us) used "dank" to refer to high-quality botanical arrangements in SoCal back when I was a kid.
I have lived my entire life in Washington and a term that I have always used and thought everyone knew was "buck." When I was 22 I worked in a pet store and sometimes had to help customers figure out what size dog collar or harness would fit their dog, so I went next door to the craft store and bought a retractable seamstress measuring tape. When I showed to my coworkers, they asked me how much it was and I told them that it was 3 bucks. One of the managers wasn't originally from here and apparently had never heard that word used that way. I don't know why dollars are called bucks or where that use of the word came from, but my whole family uses it.
"Buck" has been around since at least the 1740s and refers to the animal. Buck skin was sought after and was used as a currency measure. When the dollar was first coined in 1792, people weren't trading buck skins, but the slang still stuck around. "Buck" is definitely not a regional thing.
I think when it comes to the west coast you really need to separate California from the Pacific Northwest, there isn't as much sharing of words as you would expect. Also in the Northwest, or at least in Washington a fair number of Canadian words and phrases sneak in, maybe because we get Canadian tv (I've watched around 99% of the Olympics on CBC because of their superior round the clock coverage).
Late reply, but I agree. Even here in California we distinguish northern slang from our southern half. As someone who has spent a good amount of time living in both halves of California, SF slang is more restrictive than LA slang. I even had a friend come in from the PNW when I was living near LA (she was from near Bellevue) and she underwent a slight culture shock when we toured downtown LA
Having grown up in southern California, I've definitely heard gnarly used in a positive sense, but it's also used to describe quite the opposite, something that's revolting or disgusting.
I've never heard 'gnarly' used in a positive sense, only negative, or at least saying something was 'intense' as in: those waves were pretty gnarly. That band's music was too gnarly, we had to leave. The snow was gnarly today, we had to take the boards off and take a break. I grew up in Seattle and lived in LA half my life, as well as a bit in San Francisco
@@wisecatwillis1 in the case of music, I have only heard it as a positive... In the same way you might say "that riff is nasty" or "that breakdown was brutal"
gnarly means something is gnarled, which is like twisted in a disorganized way, like a gnarled root. It's easy to extrapolate that to waves, then to someone conquering a "gnarly" wave, then to the act itself being gnarly
Up in BC, the old usage of gnarly (generally by loggers) was something twisted and tough. But now it's a positive thing especially to boarders, which confuses my old brain all to bits!
I'm a Californian and we tend to call the puma a mountain lion. At least, in Southern CA. As for 'cougar' we all know it's another term for mountain lion, the word is generally used for an older woman dating or looking to date a much younger man.
Northern California and up here have heard cougar as that or puma, mountain lion and panther. Also the slang for older lady after younger men. Men get called cradle robbers.
Based on a woman's age, this scale classifies women (who prey on younger men for their sexual appetite) as felines. The scale is as follows: Age 0-12: Housecat Age 13-17: Bobcat Age 18-21: Wildcat Age 22-29: Lynx Age 30-39: Puma Age 40-49: Cougar Age 50-59: Jaguar Age 60-68: Panther Age 69: Pussycat Age 70-79: Cheetah Age 80-89: Leopard Age 90-99: Tiger Age 100+: Lion
I think the social meaning must be a recent neologism. I am unfamiliar with it, and definitely never heard it when I was young. (Currently 75.) Or maybe I just kept good company.
I'm a born and raised Oregonian. I've mostly heard the term Sunbreak by meteorologists on the news, but I hear potato bug, spendy, and cougar frequently. I mostly hear gnarly in reference to really nasty, gag-worthy wounds. I've not heard the term Duff ever.
Native CA millennial and I have heard of (and used) all of the CA referenced words. I also thought that bear claws were pretty ubiquitous but maybe they started here. Also a lot of confusion for the word "dank" which has been a stoner term in use since the mid nineties at least. I always took it to mean dank (as in moist) so that your herbs are moist enough to be "dank" meaning they are that fresh. Also I have been known to combine many of the phrases into a sentence (which I still get teased about by my native NV partner). So you could viably say something like "Yo this June Gloom is hella dank right now, Imma post up with this bear claw before swooping on the cafe spot, yadadamean?" and Californian could probably understand you.
Bear claws has definitely spread. I'm surprised that he hasn't heard it before living in Indiana and Chicago because I grew up in Indiana, and it's very common there. I recently lived in the SF area for 5 years, and hadn't heard some of these. Yadadamean? Nope. But what I heard a TON was the word structure. Play structure, parking structure. My brother live in Seattle for a while and apparently they say it there, too, but I haven't heard it used like that other places. I've always used parking garage and playground (even to talk about the actual play equipment as a whole).
@@Essy311 I was confused by yadadamean too, but then I realized that my friend group does say "you know what I mean" a LOT, and often very quickly too. Which, because of our tendency to pronounce "t" sounds as "d," can actually kind of sound like yadadamean lol
As an Oregonian, Duff is definitely not used widely. I've gone camping once a month my whole life and never heard duff used like that. That said the rest of the PNW words are used very commonly. The Californian words haven't made it up here though. Very different cultures.
I’m an Oregonian and I never heard it. It isn’t a local term used casually, it’s a technical term used by foresters. It isn’t just the loose stuff on the surface, but a dense layer of organic matter built up over time. This is jargon, not slang.
Having grown up in Washington, I have never heard Duff as anything other than the beer in the Simpsons or in the Redwall books referring to "Skilly and Duff", a type of food.
Guess it's more of a forestry term. Sometimes work finds me deep in the woods trying to set up a tri-pod but that fine needle floor litter can be feet thick and like walking on a sponge.
In my area of California gnarly has a somewhat negative connotation. Someone could say "I saw a gnarly car wreck today" or "look at this gnarly gash on my leg". We typically use it for things so bad you can't look away.
Yeah there is definitely an awe attached to it. Like a gnarly wave isn't a totally good wave, it's a wave that is rough and hard to ride but probably really big.
I lived on the Oregon coast for a year where "spendy" was the equivalent of "pricey". But if you think about it, it flips the responsibility. If something is pricey, the other guy is being greedy. If something is spendy but you buy it anyway, it's on you bud.
I've lived in Washington state my whole life and had no idea the word spendy was a West coast thing. We don't say it all the time, but enough that the meaning is commonly known.
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I never thought of "hella" as anything unusual. That is until I moved to San Diego as the word wasn't used here at that time though it is now. As far as Cougar goes, I think that's more common in Washington and Oregon. In California, the preferred name is actually Mountain Lion. News reports and state agencies use Mountain Lion and it appears on any official signs warning they may be in an area.
Many California words are not used in the NW. Some of those words are even familiar to me. There are similarities between the west coast's politics but culture is a different thing. In the NW we have our own words that are unique. Many of these words are ones used by younger people, who have many slang terms not familiar to older people.
Oh yeah! I heard them called pill bugs. But, not as often as potato bugs. It was always fun to watch the curl up when you touched them. Their backs would look like metal slabs side by side. Looked very protective!! Lol
I believe he has been instructed in previous videos. I think he did a video about it. I think he has even learned not to put an "Ah" in the middle of Nevada, which he gets extra credit for given his English accent.
@@pXnTilde I think that's more owed to his accent than pronunciation. as long as he didn't say and put emphasis on "GONE" at the end we should be happy.
potato bug in spanish is "el niño de la tierra" or child of the earth. I'm also glad that other people are mentioning both definitions of "cougar", in my part of the West Coast, we call the animal a Mountain Lion more often than not, so it was kind of confusing.
Native Californian here (grew up in LA but have lived in SF for 22 years), I’ve never heard of a potato bug either. “NoHo” is only really known by LA locals. “June Gloom” is only really used to refer to June in Southern California. What you were witnessing in SF is not just June, it’s the fog that happens in San Francisco pretty much any time of the year but especially in the Summer months (“Fogust”). And even then, it’s often just something that happens in SF and not even the entire Bay Area. And I’ve only ever referred to that cat as a mountain lion.
Yeah never heard potato bug. That’s a “Rollie Pollie” which is an admittedly weirder name but it is descriptive given how they roll up into little balls.
@@naynayhooray potato bugs are different and a lot bigger, i have no idea why they used that bug (roly poly/pill bug) as an example. they are beetles and they have tan bodies that are striped usually. also a california resident
@@shasta_le_bab Yeah, what I know as a 'Potato Bug' is apparently called a 'Jerusalem cricket' and what was shown, as you said, is a 'roly poly/pill bug'. Also a California resident
thanks for mentioning that june gloom is from socal, i've never heard it before and i was baffled as to what area that one was from. in the part of norcal i grew up in, the idea of having gloomy weather in june is unthinkable.
I grew up in California a long time ago and I was terrified of potato bugs. They were not the little pillbug or roly poly. They were awful, big nasty looking things. It was only after I moved to Idaho that I found out what a real potato bug was. Also not a pillbug. And I found out that what I had always called a potato bug was actually a Jerusalem cricket. They generally measure in at 2 inches, with a freakish big head. The Spanish speakers would call them Nino de la Tierra " child of the Earth." And they were called " the old bald man" by some Native American tribes. You should look up Jerusalem cricket....
I also grew up in California and "potato bug" immediately made me think of the Jerusalem cricket. Every time this comes up during my adult life I still need to be reminded of their more-correct name. Pillbugs were also "sowbugs".
@@Dahnlor Some of the Spanish speakers would call them Devil's Children, too. Did they in your area? Yeah, the pillbugs were never potato bugs, but they had several other names including sowbugs.
In the PNW, we call the wood louse (rolly-poly bug) a potato bug. I never heard of or saw a Jerusalem cricket until I moved to CA, where people told me it was a “potato bug”.
Yeah. In So. Cal I don't think we really typically call pill bugs potato bugs. I def. think of the Jerusalem cricket as potato bugs. Looking it up, Jerusalem crickets and wetas in New Zealand belong to the same larger superfamily of insects.
Duff is a forestry term. It’s used extensively in the forestry and wildland fire industries. As in “Make a fire line; you need to rake off the duff.” As a former Forest Service employee, it was one I picked up. Duff is very important in wildfire prone areas because it’s the first stuff to catch and it can burn like crazy if it’s dry. That’s why people out west keep their yards well raked, or hose down their lawns if a fire is coming. Wet duff won’t burn.
Here in Washington, I have not heard "duff" widely used except from naturalists, forest rangers, and mountaineers. I knew the word because I come from a family of mountaineers.
In 2015 there was a teen comedy called "The DUFF," which stood for "Designated Ugly Fat Friend." (This being the movies, the "ugly" girl is very pretty and not really fat.) It's on Netflix.
Bear Claws have definitely made it around North America within the past century and are not a regional exclusive product these days. Pretty much any donut shop will have them for sale. Of course, many donut shops that most people are familiar with happen to be national chains as well.
Duff is basically nature's mulch. It protects and enriches the soil underneath it. It could have been so many other things, though. Even as a 4th gen Californian and daughter of a member of the U.S. Forest Service, I didn't know what it meant in the context of this video until you defined it. Perhaps that is because I always assumed it was universally used that way by anyone who had any reason to talk about duff. I don't imagine it's used much by those who aren't involved in protecting the ecology of the forests.
West coast life-long dweller here, some of these words are really familiar! Like bear claw, hella, and potato bug for sure. I personally use spendy lol. Gnarly seems like outdated lingo. This is outdated now, but when I was in high school ten years ago we used the word epic instead. EVERYTHING was epic. I have never heard of duff and I've lived in California and Oregon my whole life haha.
A lot of those were Californian words. Washington and Oregon has their own unique set of words that are way different. We can kind of tell who's one of us by the way they talk.
A lot of these terms are not something older people your age would know. I’m 32 and while I know these words there is some slang I don’t know and I’m a young millennial who has lived here my whole life
In the Pacific Northwest, I've never heard the phrase "June Gloom", however, "June-uary" is what we call that weather pattern, as it's essentially January weather in the month of June. Edit: I've been informed below that "June Gloom" may or may not be similar to June-uary
When I was living in La Jolla, May Gray and June Gloom were very real. Go a few miles from the coast, and it is not as pronounced. But, ironically, in that super-expensive area with the popular beaches, it is gray and gloomy practically non-stop through what are two of the nicest months almost everywhere else.
I grew up in Santa Monica (in the late 80s/early 90’s before it was super ritzy, just average middle class people). We were so close to Venice Beach that we had June Gloom too. And the fog would roll in, even during the spring and summer nights and it would get cold as soon as the sun went down.
In San Diego, May Grey and June Gloom affects all the lower-lying area west of the first mountain range to roughly 600' of elevation every day. It usually burns off by noon down to about 400'. There are some lower inland areas that rarely get it, like El Cajon, Santee, and Escondido.
@@Eric__J I lived in SD for 15 years. I don't think I ever noticed May Gray or June Gloom when I lived near Sports Arena, but that was fairly long ago. I lived in City Heights for a while, and there was never anything like an actual gloom. It was only the 2 years I lived in La Jolla that I experienced the Gray and Gloom. And it was stark. Cool, wet fog that hung around practically all month.
When I was little growing up in California we called those little bugs, pill bugs because they would curl up into a little ball or pill when they were scared.
Growing up in Ohio, we called them Pill Bugs too, for the same reason as well. However, I have heard them called Rolly Pollies. Never heard of them being called Potato Bugs, until now.
What we call Potato bugs in California are not what was shown in the video (those were rollie pollies). Potato bugs are 2-3 inches long and have big heads burrow in the dirt. Some people call them Jerusalem Crickets.
This is literally the first time I've understood why people call them pill bugs. I've always envisioned a generic "pill" to be an oblong shape, not a round one so to me they look less like "pills" when they're rolled up :P
I grew up in British Columbia, and we speak the same as the rest of Cascadia (Oregonand Washington), but with some specific Canadianisms and pronunciations. We call an elephant ear a beaver tail. But we definitely call them potato bugs, cougars, and we say pop, like they do in Washington.
I am also a native Cascadian, albeit from the southern reaches [Eel River drainage, later coastal Mendocino County, all in the range of the Douglas Fir]. I wondered about pop, as in the carbonated beverages, and am gratified to learn my native word for it is common farther north. Thanks!
@@ashleydanielson3222 Washington state? I was born in Washington state. Everyone I know says pop. My entire (paternal side of the) family says pop and they have grown up in Puyallup for generations.
@@stevenwagner983 Yeah, I used to live in Utah for 2 years as a teen and they beat the pop out of me, even though I live in Canada and literally no one says soda here, I still sometimes say it. Or I say soda pop and people really look at me like I'm from another time.
I'm from the Seattle area and I've never heard anyone refer to leaves and ground debris as "Duff." The other PNW words and phrases were spot on. Spendy is fun to use in place of expensive in casual conversations.
I did indeed grow up (in California) with "potato bug" meaning the insect you pictured (I guess the official name is "woodlouse", they're like pill bugs, but aren't able to fully roll into a ball). However, there are apparently many other people who use the term "potato bug" to refer to Jerusalem crickets, which are very much not the same thing at all, leading to some confusing miscommunications on occasion.. I'm pretty sure NoHo is very much only an LA-area thing. Nobody outside of that area (even on the rest of the west coast) ever uses that term, AFAIK. And I've lived in the SF bay area pretty much my entire life (and I'm not that young) and I've never even once heard anyone say "yadadamean". I think that's just someone pulling your leg...
Oregonian here. Growing up, the bugs Laurence showed were indeed called "potato bugs" here. An episode of the Simpsons mentioned them, so I just assumed the name was more widespread.
Yup, here in 'The Bay', "hella" does mean "very"...as in..."It's hella (very) hot in here". It also means "a lot of"...as in..."I bought hella (a lot of) groceries today". Edit: Also, "hella" is derived from "hell", obviously, and can be made more PG (or G?) rated by saying "hekka" instead. Seriously, we say that too 😆
Duff is also a word specific in Wildland fire fighting or forest service because it specifically address the dead leaf and needle layer that hasn't rotted to mineral soil. It's particularly difficult to put out when on fire because its like a thick sponge that can smolder for days.
I grew up in rural Northern California in the mountains and mountain lion was what we called a cougar. Also, the photo you showed for potato bug we called a roly-poly. What we called a potato bug looks like a mutant cricket and apparently is also known as a Jerusalem cricket.
I was born in SW Washington in '67 and raised here and in NW Oregon. I've never heard most of the California terms. Though "gnarly" made it up here in the '80s I only heard "hella" when my brother married my sister-in-law almost 20 years ago - she's a SoCal transplant. I've never heard anyone say "duff." I've heard "forest litter" or just "(dry) leaves" or "needles." There's also a lot of words particular to the Pacific Northwest and BC that come from the old trade language known as "Chinook Jargon" or simply "the Jargon." Words like "potlatch" and "skookum." You might want to look that up.
Growing up in the 90s in PDX I've always been aware of hella (or heckin for children) and still hear it to this day. Duff I've understood to mean forest topsoil, but I wouldn't say it's an every-day speech word; probably just relevant to very backwoods people and hunters
I was born in the Willamette valley and live in Central Oregon. Have always used the term Duff for forest floor litter, perhaps more commonly used in Coniferous forests. I asked my wife what she called the forest floor litter her immediate response was Duff. Of Course I'm over 70 and have spent a major portion of my life in and around the forests
@@glcglc123 Strange. I've spent all my life in the woods too, though I'm only mid-50s and so not quite the old timer you are. Don't quite remember hearing the word, though it seems vaguely familiar the more I think of it. Maybe I have heard it and just forgot. Probably not a word that comes up in conversation very often unless you are a hunter, and I was fishing and other stuff a lot more often than hunting.
@@A2nthop "The PNW, perpetually annoyed at being tied into a unwilling marriage with California." I remember 30 years ago when people were complaining about Californians coming up and buying up all the good property, making places crowded, etc. Thirty years on, not much has changed, eh. :)
I'm from Washington State and we have pretty much the same weather as England. Sunbreak definitely came from here in Seattle. California may have "June Gloom" but WA has "Junuary". We get a beautiful April-May and inevitably gray sky and rain most of June. When we got the crazy heat wave last year with over 100 degrees in June, it traumatized all of us. Dank started with marijuana. Good weed = dank weed. Sometimes, we use gnarly as the opposite of its meaning here. you might have a gnarly piece of wood, one with a ton of knots and twists and not easy to split. You might be in a gnarly car accident, with the metal all twisted up and it looks really bad from the outside.
In Western Washington, it's said that summer doesn't begin until July 5th. In part due to Seattle's infamous rainy spring and a dose of June Gloom, which somehow wafts its way from California. Gnarly weather dude
June Gloom, is a SoCal word. During June the air is warming up into the 90s but the ocean water is still very cold, causing fog. The fog lasts all day early in June but 'burns off' as the month progresses earlier and earlier in the day.
Most panthers are a separate genus from puma/cougar, but the Florida Panther (not to be confused with the hockey team) is just a cougar, so there's that.
@@QuadCloudNine Not exactly. I think you're more thinking of "panthera," which is the genus for big cats within the family Felidae. A lion, for instance, is panthera leo, while panthera tigris is a tiger. "Panther" is a term often used to describe specifically melanistic variants of the jaguar and leopard: those of the species with a mutation that makes them produce too much melanin, coloring their coat a dark brown/black shade (these animals do still have spots, though. Just a subtle variation in shades of black-on-black). However, in that regard, it's just a nickname for that variant. It's not actually describing a species. "Panther" in regard to a mountain lion, is more of a regional variant. The "Florida panther," in particular, which had briefly been considered a subspecies of the puma concolor cougar (the North American subspecies, separate from p. c. concolor, the South American cougar), but has since been folded in with the North American subspecies. The name, like the rest of the cougar's names (currently there are 40 different terms for a cougar known), are regional variations, dialectical variations ("panther" and "painter" for example, likely came from dialectical shifts), and the like. Fun fact, despite being called a "panther," mountain lions are a completely individual genus from "panthera." They're not even a big cat, despite males reaching up to 220lbs. They're considered a small cat, alongside the cheetah, which is primarily indicated by the fact that neither of them can roar. A puma is capable of meowing, purring, and making basically the same vocalizations as a house cat, just on a much larger scale, but their larynx structure makes them physically incapable of roaring.
@Mokiefraggle I know the cougar is classified among the "small" or purring cats. The scream that they are known for, apparently in some areas, they are called "screamers," isn't a form of roar, but is akin to the long wail that a house cat may make when it's trying to intimidate another cat. Or, the ear splitting screach that occurs when you when you accidentally step on your cat's tail.
"Duff" also means you're derrière, as in, "Get off your duff and get back to work!" Then again, I'm from the East Coast, lol. Another hilarious offering - thanks so much, Lawrence!
55 years old, I've lived almost all my life on the West Coast, "Get off your duff!" is the only context I've ever heard it in. I did not know that the dictionary definition was "woodland detritus".
June gloom is in wide use in San Diego. It seems to be a weather phenomena that is very coastal. A few miles in from the Ocean and you don't really experience it.
@@elultimo102 I am wondering if May Gray June Gloom is specifically a San Diego thing. I don't remember it when I lived in the Bay Area. I don't think my wife who grew up in LA used it before she moved to San Diego.
@@gordoofdoom I've lived in every major city on the west coast and it's a LA Basin -> OC -> SD thing only. SF gets gloomy year-round. Meteorologically June Gloom is kind of the reverse of the Santa Ana Winds.
I’ve lived in CA my whole life and I’ve never said the words duff, or yadadamean, a potato bug is definitely different than a Roley poley and a cougar means what everyone else said.
I live in OAKLAND and we say'd it all the time, plus its' in most of the late 80's, early 90's Rap Music primarily bay area base artist: Tell Me When to Go E-40 or Get Stupid by Mac Dre.
@@will2993 I’m sure you have but that doesn’t necessarily make them of NW origin. Potato bugs were plentiful in So Cal were I grew up. Duff is used by foresters everywhere. It is not a slang or regional term.
In San Diego, 'June Gloom' pertains to the marine layer off the coast that causes the 'gloom' but it's usually gone by 12 noon -- in May, it's called 'May Gray' but no complaints from me...just as long as the sun ☀️ eventually comes out. It was in the 80's today... sunny with nary any gloom in sight. 🌞 Love all your gnarly videos, dude! 🏄♀️
@@WendellSexson Sometimes September is hotter than July especially when there's a Santa Ana but I think August is the most humid month of all. 80 degree weather doesn't amuse you? I'd rather have weather that's sunny and warm versus east coast weather where freezing your patootie off is the norm. To each his/her own, I always say, cuz soon enough we'll have the May Gray. HAPPY SUPER BOWL WEEKEND, Y'ALL! G🏈 BENGALS! 🐅 Sorry LA Rams fans -- I'm still a disgruntled SD Chargers fan. 🙁
As a Californian, I've been eating "bear claws" all my life, but didn't realize they were specific to California. I thought they called them that everywhere. But even after living in or near the Bay Area for 30 years, I had never heard "dadadamean." And, like several people elsewhere in these comments, I thought a cougar was an "older" woman who likes to date much younger men, like 40 versus 20 or so. We already knew it was an animal!
My favorite regional word is the term for the cover you put on the back of your pickup truck to make it more like a van. In the northwest we call that a "canopy" but elsewhere it's called a "cap", "topper" or "shell" and usually the other terms are completely unknown outside of each region. Heck there may be more terms then these, those are just the ones I've been exposed to in my travels.
Post up is definitely one I've heard beyond west coast. I've more often heard it as near military language. you post up for the night when you're camping in enemy territory. It's from taking guard positions.
Cougar is a (mostly) Pacific Northwest term for Mountain Lion (a term which is also used here). The term meaning an older women "hunting" for younger men came from the first meaning.
In California we use cougar and mountain Lion interchangeably, though I think mountain lion is more common in the North and cougar more common in the LA area.
My nephew teaches high school. One Monday he asked his class how their weekend was. One boy said his Scout troop had been out hiking and saw a cougar. Some girl thought he meant they saw "an old lady."
Good list! There is nothing like a bear claw on a cold foggy morning in the woods with a hot cup of coffee. It's overall a Danish style pastry but sweeter, larger, sometimes with almond shavings on top and shaped like a bear paw so easy to tear apart and share... or eat eat it all before others ask you for a piece :) My favorite bear claw is at the awesome Schat's Bakery in Bishop CA, that town is just fun. I always stop there on a long 3 day drive from WA to southern CA.
Schat's Bakery always had the best breads. Bishop had great shops like that, and Meadow Farms, a smokehouse which had dozens of different types of jerky. My question is, if 'bear claw' is a West Coast thing, what the heck do they call a bear claw anywhere else?
Laurence, did you know that the cougar / puma / mountain lion is the largest cat that can purr? We see mountain lions in Kansas from time to time -- mostly not in the city but a couple of years ago, there was a video on the news from a woman who caught sight of a mountain lion walking by her window one early morning around 4 am or so. It was in a neighborhood that is near the river which there a lots of wooded areas. She said she probably wouldn't have ever seen it if she hadn't gotten up to get a drink of water.
“Post up” can mean more generally to settle in for a temporary period. I hear a lot of people use it when explaining where they might work for a period of time, perhaps in a cafe for a few hours. Imagine someone setting out their laptop, notepad, paperwork, books, etc. and getting comfortable. This is from a Bay Area perspective.
That was not the potato bug I'm familiar with. That was a pill bug. A potato bug (aka Jerusalem cricket) is big and hideous and makes me want to run in the other direction when I see one. A pill bug, however, is small and kinda cute and will roll up into a ball if you touch it.
I was coming here to say this. My parents have a house in a more remote area and a “potato bug” somehow got into the wall and chewed a quarter sized hole in the plaster to get out. They’re not a cute little critter.
As someone from the PNW, I've never heard of anyone who doesn't understand a potato bug to be what was shown, and consider pill bug and rolly-polly to be synonyms.
I've heard "post up" as a basketball term. It refers to an offensive player establishing a position below the foul line. I didn't know it was in common use with another meaning.
Thats where it comes from lol. When you post up, you stay in place. Perfect usage of two of his words would be like Post up at your girls and Ill swoop you up in a few
I grew up near San Francisco and I remember June Gloom. It ties into the old Mark Twain quote that was something like “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco “
Lifelong Californian here - while gnarly does mean something particularly intense (good or bad), that term pretty much reached its height in the 80s. Almost never hear it used anymore. Surprised that bear claw isn’t known across the US! And, I remember when the town of North Hollywood (actually part of the City of Los Angeles) began its campaign to revitalize itself in the late 80s by rebranding itself with the NoHo moniker, which was directly influenced by SoHo! Thanks for this fun ep, Lawrence!
Yeah,. and the NoHo Arts District really started to take off around 2000 or so. I don't think it's used much to refer to the residential areas of North Hollywood. (Useless trivia: I watched them film the car crash from the beginning of Erin Brockovitch at the corner of Lankershim and Magnolia, which is pretty much the epicenter of the NoHo Arts District now.)
Ok, that explains it. NoHo would have gone out of fashion as a word by the time I was paying more attention to my surroundings. I'm like, "Wha? Who calls it that?"
Same here, PNW and it's always been a potato bug. I was horrified when I first saw pictures of what people elsewhere called a potato bug. I think over time it's changed to pillbug or rolly-poly due to a lot of transplants in the area who would get confused if you called it a potato bug. I guess it's one of those things like possum and opossum where they have the same name in other places but are completely different.
It's an Isreal Beetle in the rest of the world. Very ugly bug that ravages crops in Cali. They're gross looking too, pink and slimy looking and they bite too!
Dank: In Oregon and Washington, dank means cold, damp (not wet), dark atmosphere, where the air itself seems to be rotting. Can be outside or inside in a basement. This is an old definition. Apparently the young, possibly Southern Californians, have redefined it. My impression is that of a cold rain forest, damp but short of dripping, at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a terrible state of affairs when stoner slang supercedes ordinary usage.
It was used to describe top shelf weed because the good stuff is usually stickier, greener and looks like it’s wet while also smelling like a musky basement that has water damage. Eventually the term spread to anything that was good. I’ve mostly used it to describe tasty burritos.
@@keriezy I don't remember that from the 60's or 70's. Good stuff was Panama Red or Acapulco Gold. Really good was called "Sneak" because you never saw it coming.
@@wishingb5859 yeah, stoner culture has always been popular in California (at least compared to other states) but it really took off around ‘05 and ‘06 when weed pretty much became legal bc anyone over the age of 18 could get a medical license. All you needed was $50 and a shady doctor.
June Gloom. Always clouds up and rains mid-June when it should be warm and sunny. Although I experienced it for over thirty years. I never knew there was a word for it. There's also Summer in January. The middle two weeks of January (at least in the San Francisco Bay Area) get really warm and everyone is out in t-shirt and shorts.
In Seattle and Portland, term "the mountain is out" relates to good weather, that allows you to see the top of either Mt. Rainier or Mt. Hood. Most of the time (especially in winter), clouds block the view of these very scenic mountains (which dominate the horizon).
Today, I realized how many British TH-camrs admire Laurence! I watch a few British TH-camrs, I love them. I’m not as familiar with them as I am with Lost in the Pond. Kabir Considers is the only name I know, off hand, he’s great. There’s a young couple that have recently tried American snacks, who are cute. This guy, maybe H and Friends, or something like that. He says wow a lot and points LOL They all reference Laurence in their videos. Laurence is great! I love his sense of humor, his love for both Great Britain and America and the best part, I learn so much from him. Lost in the Pond is a great channel and it has even more meaning, coming from other Brits! Well done, Laurence, well done. 💯
@@leeann4743 I've never heard potato bug here. Always roly polies or pill bugs. I asked my daughter, and she said it's a poly poly. All she's ever known is Vancouver/Portland.
I watched this entire video waiting for you to talk about jojos! When I moved away from the Pacific Northwest, I didn't realize that the word is a regionalism. I found out by repeating it to a woman, getting successively louder, until it dawned on me that Midwesterners may not have that word.
@@kieranmclaughlin8920 Jojos are potato wedges, but usually crispier. The best ones are fried in oil leftover from frying chicken. They are available at almost all grocery store delis and, until recently, at KFC. I found out Jojos are a regionalism when I ordered them at a KFC in the Midwest and the woman kept saying, 'What?' I thought she couldn't hear me, so I said it successively louder until I realized that I was using a slang term and she might not know it. Up until then, I just figured that everyone (at least in the US) knew that word.
I don’t know about all of these terms being in wide usage, but certainly as a native to SoCal, NoHo and June gloom are pretty widely used. You’ll hear June gloom during weather forecasts in the news all the time here. The other one my husband thinks is funny (he grew up mostly along the gulf coast) is marine layer. When there’s fog rolling onshore, they always call it “the marine layer” on the news, and he thinks that’s odd. Lawrence, not sure if you’ve covered this before, but could you talk about how different places refer to their highways? In SoCal, we usually say “the #”, like “the 5”, or maybe “the 5 freeway.” All my in laws think the “the” is weird.
I get poked fun at relentlessly by my husband for my reference of freeways and highways. I grew up in California and live in Texas and married a Texan. So I would always use “the” in front of the numbers. I had to learn to say I-whatever when I was in Texas in order to not confuse people. And then when I go back to California to visit, I go back to “the”. My husband will say “so we’re taking I-5 South?” Nope, that’s doesn’t exist! Lol
I grew up in Whittier and had no idea what NoHo was. Clearly I was on the wrong side of the county. I did, however, know all about June Gloom, and even though I left CA in 2005, it still influences how I perceive hazy or foggy weather. It'll burn off. Marine layer is what causes June Gloom and doesn't necessarily involve fog - if a marine layer is rolling in, it's a pocket of cooler air moving inland. I am also married to a Texan but now live in Missouri, although I spent several years in NY state. I refer to major roads by whatever the locals use. Interstate 64 is "64" or "40" (because the old highway was a different number. Interstate 90 is "the Thruway". Interstate 5 is and always will be "the 5".
You nailed this. I’ve never lived in SoCal (been in the Bay Area all my life) but I’ve spent a lot of time there and know very well that, when down south, you say “the 405,” or “the 5” or what have you. Up here, it’s just “5,” or “80,” etc. California has so many different “languages” and cultures-it’s truly like going to different countries without ever having to go outside our borders. Though I love leaving the US, too! ;)
Oh good one, highways. And other traffic differences. In the northeast, we just call them their number, no "the". Or once in a while in a more rural area, might call it "the interstate, " but not that common. A busy and lengthy north- south highway here for much of its length is "5 & 10," when the routes 5 and 10 run together for the distance.
Duff is what you call cocaine after you have ground or chopped it up from larger rocks. It is also used to describe loose unpacked powder snow in the ski world, largely for its resemblance to the first kind I mentioned. It can also mean "Your ass," as in 'get off your duff, and get to work'
The animal you called a, 'Potato Bug', is actually a rolly polly, in cali-speak. A potato bug in the California region is actually a Jerusalem cricket. Very different insect.
Thanks for doing this! It’s very entertaining and educational. I think we also might enjoy you asking midwesterners if they could identify or properly translate regional UK words! I’d love to see that. 🙏🏽
I'm sure Laurence is well aware of the "other" meaning of cougar. In fact, he made oblique reference to it. When we in the Pacific Northwest use the term we almost always mean the cat. Washington State University's nickname is The Cougars.
This was one that had me guessing along with Laurence. I, a California native raised in the PNW, never heard "sunbreak" or "duff" and certainly not "yadadamean"
Bay Area native, read and heard lots of ("hella") run-together words, many are in Carl Nolte's oft-misquoted 2/26/1984 _S.F. Chronicle_ column "How to Talk Like a San Franciscan;" but *never* heard "yadadamean."
I've heard "sucker hole" to describe a break in the PNW cloud cover, but not "sunbreak". Called a sucker hole because there is a sucker who thinks it's going to clear up when they see that hole.
Laurence here are some Alaskan terms for you: Skookum, Cheechako, Tuffs, Getting Bermed In, Sucker Hole, Humpies (and related to Humpies, Dogs, Reds & Kings) and finally Going Outside.
You are a hoot! You’ve got this funny comedic style where you make the odd pauses, almost like “stubbing” your tongue before you finish a phrase. I rather like that quirkiness.
As a native Arizonan I use the majority of these words. Idk if it’s because my mom is from CA, or half our population is from CA. Also we spend every summer in San Diego and nobody wants to go during June gloom.
Being from Alaska, I'm looking forward to the video on our regional words. Here are some suggestions: 'termination dust', 'cheechako,' 'sourdough', 'outside', 'the bush', 'calving', 'ulu', 'muskeg', 'breakup', 'chinook' 'snow machine', and 'qiviut'
(jumping in before you read the definition from whatever source you've got) As a Bay Area native - until 1993 in the South and East Bay, since then in San Francisco proper - I was thrilled to see "hella" as the #1, as it originated in Oakland IIRC shortly after I moved away from there. And yes, it's exactly as you say, equivalent to a Bostonian's "wicked". It's a contraction of "hell of" as in "a hell of a lot". ETA: I've never hears "yadadamean" - must be recent, everyone I've ever heard says "yanowamsayin"
As a Californian, I agree with the given definition of "gnarly", but for some reason I also personally like to say it to mean "weird" or "gnarled". Also, I've never heard of "post up" other than in the context of basketball.
It's a basketball term first, before it's anything else. The top and bottom of the key are known as the high and low posts, and if a player was on one of them, they were posting up.
I'm in the UK but I knew what a bear claw was (courtesy of the animated series Archer, here Pam from HR eats them a lot). And potato bugs come up in The Simpsons at least once.
Pacific Northwest native here. I've noticed that when I was little, everybody in my local area called that wild big cat a cougar, then for a few short years we called it a puma, but now everybody calls it a mountain lion for the past dozen or so years. I first heard of a potato bug when I was in my 30s. When I finally saw a picture, I knew exactly what it was. I've known it all my life as a rollypoley, and I still call it that. Related bonus trivia: What everybody here now calls a "june bug", I grew up calling a "skeeter-eater" even after learning that they don't actually consume mosquitos. In my mind without looking it up, "dank" means "saturated with moisture", but it also somehow gets more commonly used in my home town to describe an old mansion in a formerly very rich neighborhood that has gone bad and lost most of its value, so the owners remodeled their mansion's interior and converted it into an apartment building with several cheap apartments in it.
While not a native, I have lived in Oregon quite a few years, yet I've never heard most of the words you shared. I have even been to California a good many times. One you didn't say is one that I heard in Portland many years ago (so I don't know if it still in use there) is the word "jockeybox" which means the glove box in a car. I have never heard this any place else.
If taking about the animal, yes, it could mean mountain lion. If taking about a woman, it means a lady who romantically gets together with much younger men
Where were they when I was 21? (By now, they would all be dead).
Cougar = mountain lion = puma
Californian native who lived in Colorado for a long time; cougar is a large wild cat (Colorado).
Also an older woman with a taste for young men (East *and* West Coast).
Yeah, he completely missed the mark on this one!
I said "puma" as a kid when I lived in a small town near Redding.
"Gnarly" does not mean "good", it means "intense". Bad things can be "gnarly", as in, "Dude, that wipeout was gnarly!"
Gnarly can also mean "difficult" or "dangerous" but conquerable. Originating with surfer culture, those things also equate to "great" and "intense".
I 100% agree. It is a word that still is in my vocabulary.
but it can apply as in "took a good fall" and took a bad fall" mean pretty much the same thing, though "good" and "bad" are opposites.
It also means "complex"--as in Middle East politics can be gnarly.
Gnarly is used to describe a kind of wound. A compound fracture is gnarly, a bruise is not. A wipeout being gnarly means it injured you significantly. Using gnarly instead of intense to describe a wipeout that didn't injure you drives me the same crazy that people who use literally incorrectly
I grew up with the word "duff" to mean one's rear end. To use it in a sentence, I'd say, "Get up off your duff and start helping!"
Cougar certainly means a big cat native to North America, but the slang version, which is what I thought you were going for in this video, is a woman who has reached middle age who dates younger men.
I heard this too, although it tends to imply that one is being lazy.
I've heard it used that way too all my life, but I think in this case (California) it would be like the movie The Duff where Duff means Designated Ugly Fat Friend - DUFF.
@@BoomerTex, you''re probably right about that. I never saw the movie, but I saw it listed on Netflix, and I wondered.
Makes sense.
It's a pretty common forestry word.
Right. Duff means "prat". My mom used to talk about certain comic actors (Jerry Lewis, or whoever) who would do prat falls (meaning they fell on their butts). And duff does indeed mean butt. The butt has a lot of synonyms.
I live in Oregon and have almost my whole life, and only recently realized that "spendy" is a regional word! People say it all the time here.
Flush down Kate Brown is also regional here.
@@davidkuznetsov2011 that’s what happens when the city(s) controls the state. We have the same problem just north of there.
That was the first word that gave me pause after moving to WA from IL. Nice to see it included.
From SoCal, I've heard of "spendy" and am pretty sure I've used it myself. I didn't realize it's supposed to be a PNW thing.
@@davidkuznetsov2011 for methford
I'm waiting for Laurence to discover that the eastern parts of Washington and Oregon are arid semi-desert climates extremely different than the stereotypical rainy and grey Seattle. I seem to recall he's been to Idaho as well, and southern Idaho is very similar.
YESSSSSS!! Drives me nuts that the world seems to think the PNW all has Seattle weather
Washington state features every type of climate of the continental US all in one place: desert, coastal, the only rainforest in the northern hemisphere… it’s the most amazing place on Earth.
Some parts of eastern Washington and Oregon are not just semi-desert they are desert. Yakima averages 3 inches of rain annually.
@MAB I believe that there is also a temperate rainforest in BC Canada.
@Ilene Strong Finally, someone else who realizes that Seattle doesn't represent the entire state. Weatherwise or in other ways.
Considering how Laurence approached the cougar question, I think he is familiar with the slang, and was legitimately unfamiliar with the actual animal. It's a mountain lion to me.
We call them Mountain Lions in California. Cougar is more of a Rocky Mountains thing.
@@naynayhoorayI live in Colorado and no one uses cougar. They are mountain lions.
Whatever one wants to call them, remaining unfamiliar with them is optimal, at least on an up-close-and-personal while out hiking, jogging, or bicycling basis...
The cougar question ,I have it, refers to an older woman who chases younger men for affection,
I thought “Cougar” was definitely going to be woman who goes after much younger men. Now I want to know the origin story behind this meaning.
Cougar as term for older women going after younger men comes from being on the prowl for prey like the cat cougar.
Being from L,A, that is most definitely the meaning we call the cats mountain lions.
@@CaptainHightop No, it comes from the notion that her body is hot and her face is scary. It's an insult. I wouldn't repeat it to women unless they bring it up in a positive way.
Again, with reference to the cat name and not the woman slang, cougar comes from French. Makes total sense that it would spread down from French Canadian trappers into Washington, then Oregon, which had a long "trapper" history.
@@devorahacts That is not a cougar. That's butterface. I have never heard anyone use it that way.
"Dank" has an interesting turnaround of meanings. Originally dark, then dark, damp and mildewy, as in "The dank smell of the disused cellar". From there to anything strongly and not particularly pleasantly odoriferous, which was then assigned to a high grade of a vegetable substance not normally eaten in salads. from there it took the meaning of a high grade of anything, and then just generally good.
I have only heard the word dank for the dark damp smelly area. Never heard it to mean anything good. Northern Californian here.
@@luelladiaz109 I think because when your herbs are really good, you can smell the moisture on it, meaning high quality. So "dank memes" can by association mean "high quality" memes because high moisture=high quality.
@@luelladiaz109 So. Cal. for 44 years---same but then I haven't been around pot since high school.
@@antilogism Yeah, guess you missed it. I'm only a few years younger than you and we (along with people older than us) used "dank" to refer to high-quality botanical arrangements in SoCal back when I was a kid.
The original use of this word is what I thought of when he said it.
I have lived my entire life in Washington and a term that I have always used and thought everyone knew was "buck." When I was 22 I worked in a pet store and sometimes had to help customers figure out what size dog collar or harness would fit their dog, so I went next door to the craft store and bought a retractable seamstress measuring tape. When I showed to my coworkers, they asked me how much it was and I told them that it was 3 bucks. One of the managers wasn't originally from here and apparently had never heard that word used that way. I don't know why dollars are called bucks or where that use of the word came from, but my whole family uses it.
One dollar=one buck comes from the colonial fur trade. One buckskin was worth one dollar for trade purposes.
We use it here in the northeast too.
I'm from Wisconsin. I've said buck for dollar all my life.
"Buck" has been around since at least the 1740s and refers to the animal. Buck skin was sought after and was used as a currency measure. When the dollar was first coined in 1792, people weren't trading buck skins, but the slang still stuck around. "Buck" is definitely not a regional thing.
I've lived in CA my whole life and I'm aware that buck could mean dollars.
I think when it comes to the west coast you really need to separate California from the Pacific Northwest, there isn't as much sharing of words as you would expect. Also in the Northwest, or at least in Washington a fair number of Canadian words and phrases sneak in, maybe because we get Canadian tv (I've watched around 99% of the Olympics on CBC because of their superior round the clock coverage).
Late reply, but I agree. Even here in California we distinguish northern slang from our southern half.
As someone who has spent a good amount of time living in both halves of California, SF slang is more restrictive than LA slang.
I even had a friend come in from the PNW when I was living near LA (she was from near Bellevue) and she underwent a slight culture shock when we toured downtown LA
I can assure you that the majority of cali words are in the seattle-tacoma area. Definitely don't have canadian things lol.
@@RyukyuStyle Only because there are too many Californians moving up here!
@@solracer66 just like the east moving out west crazy right lol
As a Ex-Californian with strong ties still there, I disagree, there is lots of overlap in accent and vocabulary.
Having grown up in southern California, I've definitely heard gnarly used in a positive sense, but it's also used to describe quite the opposite, something that's revolting or disgusting.
I've never heard 'gnarly' used in a positive sense, only negative, or at least saying something was 'intense' as in: those waves were pretty gnarly. That band's music was too gnarly, we had to leave. The snow was gnarly today, we had to take the boards off and take a break.
I grew up in Seattle and lived in LA half my life, as well as a bit in San Francisco
@@wisecatwillis1 in the case of music, I have only heard it as a positive... In the same way you might say "that riff is nasty" or "that breakdown was brutal"
gnarly means something is gnarled, which is like twisted in a disorganized way, like a gnarled root. It's easy to extrapolate that to waves, then to someone conquering a "gnarly" wave, then to the act itself being gnarly
Up in BC, the old usage of gnarly (generally by loggers) was something twisted and tough. But now it's a positive thing especially to boarders, which confuses my old brain all to bits!
ive heard gnarly before... but almost always in a negative sense. im from the midwest though
I'm a Californian and we tend to call the puma a mountain lion. At least, in Southern CA. As for 'cougar' we all know it's another term for mountain lion, the word is generally used for an older woman dating or looking to date a much younger man.
Same, in the Bay Area its almost always referred to as a mountain lion
Northern California and up here have heard cougar as that or puma, mountain lion and panther. Also the slang for older lady after younger men. Men get called cradle robbers.
Central Valley here. I always heard mountain lion when referring to the creature. But cougar occasionally popped up.
Sacramento here, only ever called it a Mountain Lion.
Yes the creative term on the word sugar mama
Although there is no animal for the mail it's just sugar daddy LOL.
Animal Cougar = Mountain Lion. In society, it's a woman who's about 10+ years older than her male lover.
Ahem... or female lover. Being "on the prowl" for a younger person is the key.
Based on a woman's age, this scale classifies women (who prey on younger men for their sexual appetite) as felines.
The scale is as follows:
Age 0-12: Housecat
Age 13-17: Bobcat
Age 18-21: Wildcat
Age 22-29: Lynx
Age 30-39: Puma
Age 40-49: Cougar
Age 50-59: Jaguar
Age 60-68: Panther
Age 69: Pussycat
Age 70-79: Cheetah
Age 80-89: Leopard
Age 90-99: Tiger
Age 100+: Lion
I think the social meaning must be a recent neologism. I am unfamiliar with it, and definitely never heard it when I was young. (Currently 75.) Or maybe I just kept good company.
@@alanjameson8664 The term has been around for a good 25 years at least. I learned it in my early 20s or so. (54 here)
I'm a born and raised Oregonian. I've mostly heard the term Sunbreak by meteorologists on the news, but I hear potato bug, spendy, and cougar frequently. I mostly hear gnarly in reference to really nasty, gag-worthy wounds. I've not heard the term Duff ever.
Native CA millennial and I have heard of (and used) all of the CA referenced words. I also thought that bear claws were pretty ubiquitous but maybe they started here. Also a lot of confusion for the word "dank" which has been a stoner term in use since the mid nineties at least. I always took it to mean dank (as in moist) so that your herbs are moist enough to be "dank" meaning they are that fresh.
Also I have been known to combine many of the phrases into a sentence (which I still get teased about by my native NV partner). So you could viably say something like "Yo this June Gloom is hella dank right now, Imma post up with this bear claw before swooping on the cafe spot, yadadamean?" and Californian could probably understand you.
Bear claws has definitely spread. I'm surprised that he hasn't heard it before living in Indiana and Chicago because I grew up in Indiana, and it's very common there.
I recently lived in the SF area for 5 years, and hadn't heard some of these. Yadadamean? Nope.
But what I heard a TON was the word structure. Play structure, parking structure. My brother live in Seattle for a while and apparently they say it there, too, but I haven't heard it used like that other places. I've always used parking garage and playground (even to talk about the actual play equipment as a whole).
@@Essy311 I have lived in the SF Bay Area for 56 years and have never heart Yadadamean.
Same, been in the Bay area for decades (not 56 years, but a while) and never heard yadadamean.
i know we use this slang, but man its been a while since i've seen someone use it all in a sentence. thank you for representing us!!!
@@Essy311 I was confused by yadadamean too, but then I realized that my friend group does say "you know what I mean" a LOT, and often very quickly too.
Which, because of our tendency to pronounce "t" sounds as "d," can actually kind of sound like yadadamean lol
As an Oregonian, Duff is definitely not used widely. I've gone camping once a month my whole life and never heard duff used like that. That said the rest of the PNW words are used very commonly. The Californian words haven't made it up here though. Very different cultures.
I’m an Oregonian and I never heard it. It isn’t a local term used casually, it’s a technical term used by foresters. It isn’t just the loose stuff on the surface, but a dense layer of organic matter built up over time. This is jargon, not slang.
Having grown up in Washington, I have never heard Duff as anything other than the beer in the Simpsons or in the Redwall books referring to "Skilly and Duff", a type of food.
Guess it's more of a forestry term. Sometimes work finds me deep in the woods trying to set up a tri-pod but that fine needle floor litter can be feet thick and like walking on a sponge.
@@DaRozeman Or the guy who makes cakes on TV.
@@DaRozeman
Have you heard "get off your duff..." As usage of duff?
In my area of California gnarly has a somewhat negative connotation. Someone could say "I saw a gnarly car wreck today" or "look at this gnarly gash on my leg". We typically use it for things so bad you can't look away.
It's in the inflection. Can be good, can mean bad, can mean weird. It's like Dude. :D
Yeah there is definitely an awe attached to it. Like a gnarly wave isn't a totally good wave, it's a wave that is rough and hard to ride but probably really big.
gnarly is a form of intensifier as well, usually meaning extreme or severe, so it can be used in both positive and negative situations
@Apsoy Pike Have you seen footage of surgeries, especially those regarding bones? lol I'd say power tools and hammers are pretty gnarly
I think we're from the same "area" of California because that was my thought exactly.
I lived on the Oregon coast for a year where "spendy" was the equivalent of "pricey". But if you think about it, it flips the responsibility. If something is pricey, the other guy is being greedy. If something is spendy but you buy it anyway, it's on you bud.
I've lived in Washington state my whole life and had no idea the word spendy was a West coast thing. We don't say it all the time, but enough that the meaning is commonly known.
We say it in Minnesota too
during the winter Newport and Lincoln City are dank.
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I never thought of "hella" as anything unusual. That is until I moved to San Diego as the word wasn't used here at that time though it is now. As far as Cougar goes, I think that's more common in Washington and Oregon. In California, the preferred name is actually Mountain Lion. News reports and state agencies use Mountain Lion and it appears on any official signs warning they may be in an area.
Many California words are not used in the NW. Some of those words are even familiar to me. There are similarities between the west coast's politics but culture is a different thing. In the NW we have our own words that are unique. Many of these words are ones used by younger people, who have many slang terms not familiar to older people.
That “Potato Bug” is actually a Roly-Poly. Or a Pill bug. So much fun to play with!
Oh yeah! I heard them called pill bugs. But, not as often as potato bugs. It was always fun to watch the curl up when you touched them. Their backs would look like metal slabs side by side. Looked very protective!! Lol
Roly poly is what I remember, too , in Missouri.
📻🙂
His name is Uncle Carl.
If anyone gets that reference, I will eat a bug.
Also referred to as a sow bug. I don’t know how they get confused with the horrendous potato bug!!
I grew up in Washington state calling them potato bugs.
I'm just so impressed that Laurence pronounced Oregon correctly.
He gets more points than most people living on the east coast that almost willfully pronounce it wrong.
I believe he has been instructed in previous videos. I think he did a video about it. I think he has even learned not to put an "Ah" in the middle of Nevada, which he gets extra credit for given his English accent.
Eh, the first O was a bit more Ah than Oh, but definitely he did better than most people in the US
@@pXnTilde I think that's more owed to his accent than pronunciation. as long as he didn't say and put emphasis on "GONE" at the end we should be happy.
@@tahoemike5828 Orygun
Lawrence you could do a years worth of material just on Kentucky, and appalachia and the relationship to Britain... LOL
potato bug in spanish is "el niño de la tierra" or child of the earth. I'm also glad that other people are mentioning both definitions of "cougar", in my part of the West Coast, we call the animal a Mountain Lion more often than not, so it was kind of confusing.
Native Californian here (grew up in LA but have lived in SF for 22 years), I’ve never heard of a potato bug either. “NoHo” is only really known by LA locals. “June Gloom” is only really used to refer to June in Southern California. What you were witnessing in SF is not just June, it’s the fog that happens in San Francisco pretty much any time of the year but especially in the Summer months (“Fogust”). And even then, it’s often just something that happens in SF and not even the entire Bay Area.
And I’ve only ever referred to that cat as a mountain lion.
Yeah never heard potato bug. That’s a “Rollie Pollie” which is an admittedly weirder name but it is descriptive given how they roll up into little balls.
@@naynayhooray potato bugs are different and a lot bigger, i have no idea why they used that bug (roly poly/pill bug) as an example. they are beetles and they have tan bodies that are striped usually. also a california resident
@@shasta_le_bab as a Pacific Northwesterner, the video is spot on. We call the wood louse' a 'potato bug'
@@shasta_le_bab Yeah, what I know as a 'Potato Bug' is apparently called a 'Jerusalem cricket' and what was shown, as you said, is a 'roly poly/pill bug'. Also a California resident
thanks for mentioning that june gloom is from socal, i've never heard it before and i was baffled as to what area that one was from. in the part of norcal i grew up in, the idea of having gloomy weather in june is unthinkable.
I grew up in California a long time ago and I was terrified of potato bugs. They were not the little pillbug or roly poly. They were awful, big nasty looking things. It was only after I moved to Idaho that I found out what a real potato bug was. Also not a pillbug. And I found out that what I had always called a potato bug was actually a Jerusalem cricket. They generally measure in at 2 inches, with a freakish big head. The Spanish speakers would call them Nino de la Tierra " child of the Earth." And they were called " the old bald man" by some Native American tribes. You should look up Jerusalem cricket....
I also grew up in California and "potato bug" immediately made me think of the Jerusalem cricket. Every time this comes up during my adult life I still need to be reminded of their more-correct name. Pillbugs were also "sowbugs".
@@Dahnlor Some of the Spanish speakers would call them Devil's Children, too. Did they in your area? Yeah, the pillbugs were never potato bugs, but they had several other names including sowbugs.
In the PNW, we call the wood louse (rolly-poly bug) a potato bug. I never heard of or saw a Jerusalem cricket until I moved to CA, where people told me it was a “potato bug”.
Yeah. In So. Cal I don't think we really typically call pill bugs potato bugs. I def. think of the Jerusalem cricket as potato bugs. Looking it up, Jerusalem crickets and wetas in New Zealand belong to the same larger superfamily of insects.
Yes! In California I’ve only ever heard potato bug used for Jerusalem crickets.
Duff is a forestry term. It’s used extensively in the forestry and wildland fire industries. As in “Make a fire line; you need to rake off the duff.” As a former Forest Service employee, it was one I picked up. Duff is very important in wildfire prone areas because it’s the first stuff to catch and it can burn like crazy if it’s dry. That’s why people out west keep their yards well raked, or hose down their lawns if a fire is coming. Wet duff won’t burn.
Here in Washington, I have not heard "duff" widely used except from naturalists, forest rangers, and mountaineers. I knew the word because I come from a family of mountaineers.
In 2015 there was a teen comedy called "The DUFF," which stood for "Designated Ugly Fat Friend." (This being the movies, the "ugly" girl is very pretty and not really fat.) It's on Netflix.
@@bradleywalker8468 And that's most likely what was meant because how many call dead leaves on the ground "duff".
In the UK it means a failure, even "rank" (really rough). "It was a duff beer" - the beer wasn't a nice one to drink.
We, just regular people, used forest duff in the northeast. Also we ate bear claws.
I've seen Bearclaws in bakeries in Minnesota. Probably elsewhere too. They are usually shaped more like a bear's foot than the one you showed.
Also seen them in Fl
Bear Claws have definitely made it around North America within the past century and are not a regional exclusive product these days. Pretty much any donut shop will have them for sale. Of course, many donut shops that most people are familiar with happen to be national chains as well.
In Canada it's sometimes called a beaver tail
Duff is basically nature's mulch. It protects and enriches the soil underneath it. It could have been so many other things, though. Even as a 4th gen Californian and daughter of a member of the U.S. Forest Service, I didn't know what it meant in the context of this video until you defined it. Perhaps that is because I always assumed it was universally used that way by anyone who had any reason to talk about duff. I don't imagine it's used much by those who aren't involved in protecting the ecology of the forests.
West coast life-long dweller here, some of these words are really familiar! Like bear claw, hella, and potato bug for sure. I personally use spendy lol. Gnarly seems like outdated lingo. This is outdated now, but when I was in high school ten years ago we used the word epic instead. EVERYTHING was epic. I have never heard of duff and I've lived in California and Oregon my whole life haha.
A lot of those were Californian words. Washington and Oregon has their own unique set of words that are way different. We can kind of tell who's one of us by the way they talk.
Being Washingtonian, I was disappointed
Mountain lion is what we called them when I lived in California
I've lived in California all of my 64 years, and some of these words are new to me.
Most of these are new to me
I was surprised that most people dont know the true meaning of cougar
Same here 72 years and some very new and some used differently like duff meaning you rear end. Swoop as in swoop in and grab it first.
A lot of these terms are not something older people your age would know. I’m 32 and while I know these words there is some slang I don’t know and I’m a young millennial who has lived here my whole life
In the Pacific Northwest, I've never heard the phrase "June Gloom", however, "June-uary" is what we call that weather pattern, as it's essentially January weather in the month of June.
Edit: I've been informed below that "June Gloom" may or may not be similar to June-uary
June Gloom I thought was California coastal fog.
Actually it's just an overcast morning in late May, June
We have June-uary in BC as well
May Gray and June Gloom are CA based lol
June Gloom is definitely a San Diego word as May, June and half of July are totally foggy until about 5 pm. We therefore, also have May Gray!
When I was living in La Jolla, May Gray and June Gloom were very real. Go a few miles from the coast, and it is not as pronounced. But, ironically, in that super-expensive area with the popular beaches, it is gray and gloomy practically non-stop through what are two of the nicest months almost everywhere else.
I grew up in Santa Monica (in the late 80s/early 90’s before it was super ritzy, just average middle class people). We were so close to Venice Beach that we had June Gloom too. And the fog would roll in, even during the spring and summer nights and it would get cold as soon as the sun went down.
In San Diego, May Grey and June Gloom affects all the lower-lying area west of the first mountain range to roughly 600' of elevation every day. It usually burns off by noon down to about 400'. There are some lower inland areas that rarely get it, like El Cajon, Santee, and Escondido.
@@Eric__J I lived in SD for 15 years. I don't think I ever noticed May Gray or June Gloom when I lived near Sports Arena, but that was fairly long ago. I lived in City Heights for a while, and there was never anything like an actual gloom. It was only the 2 years I lived in La Jolla that I experienced the Gray and Gloom. And it was stark. Cool, wet fog that hung around practically all month.
And June Gloom 😮
I absolutely love La Jolla. Apart from the shear amount of people and houses its a paradise!
When I was little growing up in California we called those little bugs, pill bugs because they would curl up into a little ball or pill when they were scared.
We called them rolie polies
Growing up in Ohio, we called them Pill Bugs too, for the same reason as well. However, I have heard them called Rolly Pollies. Never heard of them being called Potato Bugs, until now.
@@fermisparadox01 we did too in southern Illinois
What we call Potato bugs in California are not what was shown in the video (those were rollie pollies). Potato bugs are 2-3 inches long and have big heads burrow in the dirt. Some people call them Jerusalem Crickets.
This is literally the first time I've understood why people call them pill bugs. I've always envisioned a generic "pill" to be an oblong shape, not a round one so to me they look less like "pills" when they're rolled up :P
I grew up in British Columbia, and we speak the same as the rest of Cascadia (Oregonand Washington), but with some specific Canadianisms and pronunciations. We call an elephant ear a beaver tail. But we definitely call them potato bugs, cougars, and we say pop, like they do in Washington.
I am also a native Cascadian, albeit from the southern reaches [Eel River drainage, later coastal Mendocino County, all in the range of the Douglas Fir]. I wondered about pop, as in the carbonated beverages, and am gratified to learn my native word for it is common farther north. Thanks!
We say soda in Washington.
@@ashleydanielson3222 Washington state? I was born in Washington state. Everyone I know says pop. My entire (paternal side of the) family says pop and they have grown up in Puyallup for generations.
@@raynemichelle2996 seattle native as a kid and teen used pop but as got older switched to soda,
@@stevenwagner983 Yeah, I used to live in Utah for 2 years as a teen and they beat the pop out of me, even though I live in Canada and literally no one says soda here, I still sometimes say it. Or I say soda pop and people really look at me like I'm from another time.
I'm from the Seattle area and I've never heard anyone refer to leaves and ground debris as "Duff." The other PNW words and phrases were spot on. Spendy is fun to use in place of expensive in casual conversations.
I did indeed grow up (in California) with "potato bug" meaning the insect you pictured (I guess the official name is "woodlouse", they're like pill bugs, but aren't able to fully roll into a ball). However, there are apparently many other people who use the term "potato bug" to refer to Jerusalem crickets, which are very much not the same thing at all, leading to some confusing miscommunications on occasion..
I'm pretty sure NoHo is very much only an LA-area thing. Nobody outside of that area (even on the rest of the west coast) ever uses that term, AFAIK.
And I've lived in the SF bay area pretty much my entire life (and I'm not that young) and I've never even once heard anyone say "yadadamean". I think that's just someone pulling your leg...
Oregonian here. Growing up, the bugs Laurence showed were indeed called "potato bugs" here. An episode of the Simpsons mentioned them, so I just assumed the name was more widespread.
Lived in both WA and OR for combined 25 years and one regional term I love is "Skookum".
Yup, here in 'The Bay', "hella" does mean "very"...as in..."It's hella (very) hot in here".
It also means "a lot of"...as in..."I bought hella (a lot of) groceries today".
Edit: Also, "hella" is derived from "hell", obviously, and can be made more PG (or G?) rated by saying "hekka" instead. Seriously, we say that too 😆
"Hell of a lot of"
"I think I did pretty good on that. Don't get me wrong, I did dreadfully" Mr. Brown, you have a lovely way with words
Duff is also a word specific in Wildland fire fighting or forest service because it specifically address the dead leaf and needle layer that hasn't rotted to mineral soil. It's particularly difficult to put out when on fire because its like a thick sponge that can smolder for days.
I grew up in rural Northern California in the mountains and mountain lion was what we called a cougar. Also, the photo you showed for potato bug we called a roly-poly. What we called a potato bug looks like a mutant cricket and apparently is also known as a Jerusalem cricket.
I was born in SW Washington in '67 and raised here and in NW Oregon. I've never heard most of the California terms. Though "gnarly" made it up here in the '80s I only heard "hella" when my brother married my sister-in-law almost 20 years ago - she's a SoCal transplant. I've never heard anyone say "duff." I've heard "forest litter" or just "(dry) leaves" or "needles."
There's also a lot of words particular to the Pacific Northwest and BC that come from the old trade language known as "Chinook Jargon" or simply "the Jargon." Words like "potlatch" and "skookum." You might want to look that up.
Growing up in the 90s in PDX I've always been aware of hella (or heckin for children) and still hear it to this day. Duff I've understood to mean forest topsoil, but I wouldn't say it's an every-day speech word; probably just relevant to very backwoods people and hunters
I was born in the Willamette valley and live in Central Oregon. Have always used the term Duff for forest floor litter, perhaps more commonly used in Coniferous forests. I asked my wife what she called the forest floor litter her immediate response was Duff. Of Course I'm over 70 and have spent a major portion of my life in and around the forests
The PNW, perpetually annoyed at being tied into a unwilling marriage with California.
@@glcglc123 Strange. I've spent all my life in the woods too, though I'm only mid-50s and so not quite the old timer you are. Don't quite remember hearing the word, though it seems vaguely familiar the more I think of it. Maybe I have heard it and just forgot. Probably not a word that comes up in conversation very often unless you are a hunter, and I was fishing and other stuff a lot more often than hunting.
@@A2nthop "The PNW, perpetually annoyed at being tied into a unwilling marriage with California."
I remember 30 years ago when people were complaining about Californians coming up and buying up all the good property, making places crowded, etc. Thirty years on, not much has changed, eh. :)
I'm from Washington State and we have pretty much the same weather as England. Sunbreak definitely came from here in Seattle. California may have "June Gloom" but WA has "Junuary". We get a beautiful April-May and inevitably gray sky and rain most of June. When we got the crazy heat wave last year with over 100 degrees in June, it traumatized all of us. Dank started with marijuana. Good weed = dank weed. Sometimes, we use gnarly as the opposite of its meaning here. you might have a gnarly piece of wood, one with a ton of knots and twists and not easy to split. You might be in a gnarly car accident, with the metal all twisted up and it looks really bad from the outside.
In Western Washington, it's said that summer doesn't begin until July 5th. In part due to Seattle's infamous rainy spring and a dose of June Gloom, which somehow wafts its way from California. Gnarly weather dude
June Gloom is particularly used in San Diego.
related to May Gray and No Sky July here
No sun until afternoon in north orange county
Gnarly. Is a word that originated in the California "Valley" of L.A., is no longer used, but was surfer/skater lingo from the 1980's.
June Gloom, is a SoCal word. During June the air is warming up into the 90s but the ocean water is still very cold, causing fog. The fog lasts all day early in June but 'burns off' as the month progresses earlier and earlier in the day.
I’ve been American all my life, and I thought that pumas, cougars, and panthers were all different animals.
Dude, me too.
They can be. Panther is more of a general term for a few types of big cat, including jaguars, which are different than mountain lions.
Most panthers are a separate genus from puma/cougar, but the Florida Panther (not to be confused with the hockey team) is just a cougar, so there's that.
@@QuadCloudNine Not exactly. I think you're more thinking of "panthera," which is the genus for big cats within the family Felidae. A lion, for instance, is panthera leo, while panthera tigris is a tiger. "Panther" is a term often used to describe specifically melanistic variants of the jaguar and leopard: those of the species with a mutation that makes them produce too much melanin, coloring their coat a dark brown/black shade (these animals do still have spots, though. Just a subtle variation in shades of black-on-black). However, in that regard, it's just a nickname for that variant. It's not actually describing a species.
"Panther" in regard to a mountain lion, is more of a regional variant. The "Florida panther," in particular, which had briefly been considered a subspecies of the puma concolor cougar (the North American subspecies, separate from p. c. concolor, the South American cougar), but has since been folded in with the North American subspecies. The name, like the rest of the cougar's names (currently there are 40 different terms for a cougar known), are regional variations, dialectical variations ("panther" and "painter" for example, likely came from dialectical shifts), and the like.
Fun fact, despite being called a "panther," mountain lions are a completely individual genus from "panthera." They're not even a big cat, despite males reaching up to 220lbs. They're considered a small cat, alongside the cheetah, which is primarily indicated by the fact that neither of them can roar. A puma is capable of meowing, purring, and making basically the same vocalizations as a house cat, just on a much larger scale, but their larynx structure makes them physically incapable of roaring.
@Mokiefraggle I know the cougar is classified among the "small" or purring cats. The scream that they are known for, apparently in some areas, they are called "screamers," isn't a form of roar, but is akin to the long wail that a house cat may make when it's trying to intimidate another cat. Or, the ear splitting screach that occurs when you when you accidentally step on your cat's tail.
"Duff" also means you're derrière, as in, "Get off your duff and get back to work!" Then again, I'm from the East Coast, lol. Another hilarious offering - thanks so much, Lawrence!
55 years old, I've lived almost all my life on the West Coast, "Get off your duff!" is the only context I've ever heard it in. I did not know that the dictionary definition was "woodland detritus".
@@seantlewis376 i know it as both, up here in BC, but then again I did work in forestry for awhile back in my 20s.
your*
@@pbjman5809 did that make you feel better?
@@jlt131 yes
June gloom is in wide use in San Diego. It seems to be a weather phenomena that is very coastal. A few miles in from the Ocean and you don't really experience it.
June Gloom happens the month after "May Gray." (25 years in San Diego, most of the time watching John Coleman's weathercasts).
Whole phrase is May Gray, June Gloom
@@elultimo102 I am wondering if May Gray June Gloom is specifically a San Diego thing. I don't remember it when I lived in the Bay Area. I don't think my wife who grew up in LA used it before she moved to San Diego.
@@gordoofdoom I've lived in every major city on the west coast and it's a LA Basin -> OC -> SD thing only. SF gets gloomy year-round. Meteorologically June Gloom is kind of the reverse of the Santa Ana Winds.
@@gemoftheocean What about "no-
sky july"? :)
"I don't know many Cougars in Chicago", LMAO
June Gloom is preceded by the May Gray. Generally extends about 5 mi in from the coast, then you hit the brilliant sunshine.
I’ve lived in CA my whole life and I’ve never said the words duff, or yadadamean, a potato bug is definitely different than a Roley poley and a cougar means what everyone else said.
Same here, but I have heard yahmean
I live in OAKLAND and we say'd it all the time, plus its' in most of the late 80's, early 90's Rap Music primarily bay area base artist: Tell Me When to Go
E-40 or Get Stupid
by Mac Dre.
Duff and potato bug are Pacific Northwest terms. I’ve heard them many many times
@@will2993 I’m sure you have but that doesn’t necessarily make them of NW origin. Potato bugs were plentiful in So Cal were I grew up. Duff is used by foresters everywhere. It is not a slang or regional term.
Same!
In San Diego, 'June Gloom' pertains to the marine layer off the coast that causes the 'gloom' but it's usually gone by 12 noon -- in May, it's called 'May Gray' but no complaints from me...just as long as the sun ☀️ eventually comes out.
It was in the 80's today... sunny with nary any gloom in sight. 🌞
Love all your gnarly videos, dude! 🏄♀️
Same in Los Angeles; we have "May Grey" and "June Gloom". And then there's "July Fry"
@@hoodmistressreloaded
"July Fry"? That's a new one for me but it certainly applies to SoCal's hottest month, indeed!
Some years either September or October are hotter. It depends.
Mid 80s today in Long Beach, too. I was not amused.
@@WendellSexson
Sometimes September is hotter than July especially when there's a Santa Ana but I think August is the most humid month of all.
80 degree weather doesn't amuse you?
I'd rather have weather that's sunny and warm versus east coast weather where freezing your patootie off is the norm.
To each his/her own, I always say, cuz soon enough we'll have the May Gray.
HAPPY SUPER BOWL WEEKEND, Y'ALL!
G🏈 BENGALS! 🐅
Sorry LA Rams fans -- I'm still a disgruntled SD Chargers fan. 🙁
As a Californian, I've been eating "bear claws" all my life, but didn't realize they were specific to California. I thought they called them that everywhere. But even after living in or near the Bay Area for 30 years, I had never heard "dadadamean." And, like several people elsewhere in these comments, I thought a cougar was an "older" woman who likes to date much younger men, like 40 versus 20 or so. We already knew it was an animal!
I think they do call them that everywhere. I grew up in West Virginia, and had always heard of bear claws and knew that they are a type of pastry.
yadadamean is probably just black slang or lazy english (i.e., slurred words)
Yadadamean definitely Bay Area rap culture slang and is kinda old at this point. It’s in the song “Tell Me When to Go” by E-40.
We have bear claws in Montana.
I’m in New England and we have Bear Claws here too.
My favorite regional word is the term for the cover you put on the back of your pickup truck to make it more like a van. In the northwest we call that a "canopy" but elsewhere it's called a "cap", "topper" or "shell" and usually the other terms are completely unknown outside of each region. Heck there may be more terms then these, those are just the ones I've been exposed to in my travels.
Post up is definitely one I've heard beyond west coast. I've more often heard it as near military language. you post up for the night when you're camping in enemy territory. It's from taking guard positions.
Cougar is a (mostly) Pacific Northwest term for Mountain Lion (a term which is also used here). The term meaning an older women "hunting" for younger men came from the first meaning.
In California we use cougar and mountain Lion interchangeably, though I think mountain lion is more common in the North and cougar more common in the LA area.
Those terms are used all over California.
My friends dad owned a sick ass Mercury Cougar in Florida.
My nephew teaches high school. One Monday he asked his class how their weekend was. One boy said his Scout troop had been out hiking and saw a cougar. Some girl thought he meant they saw "an old lady."
🤭😆
Good list! There is nothing like a bear claw on a cold foggy morning in the woods with a hot cup of coffee. It's overall a Danish style pastry but sweeter, larger, sometimes with almond shavings on top and shaped like a bear paw so easy to tear apart and share... or eat eat it all before others ask you for a piece :) My favorite bear claw is at the awesome Schat's Bakery in Bishop CA, that town is just fun. I always stop there on a long 3 day drive from WA to southern CA.
Lot's of Bear claws in Philadelphia, PA
They have sweet almond paste as a filling.
Schat's Bakery always had the best breads. Bishop had great shops like that, and Meadow Farms, a smokehouse which had dozens of different types of jerky.
My question is, if 'bear claw' is a West Coast thing, what the heck do they call a bear claw anywhere else?
@@tiki_trash Bear Claws in Cali always had almond paste, but in Washington, they almost always have an apple filling.
Went to the Schat's Bakery in Mammoth, so freakin tasty!!!
Laurence, did you know that the cougar / puma / mountain lion is the largest cat that can purr? We see mountain lions in Kansas from time to time -- mostly not in the city but a couple of years ago, there was a video on the news from a woman who caught sight of a mountain lion walking by her window one early morning around 4 am or so. It was in a neighborhood that is near the river which there a lots of wooded areas. She said she probably wouldn't have ever seen it if she hadn't gotten up to get a drink of water.
“Post up” can mean more generally to settle in for a temporary period. I hear a lot of people use it when explaining where they might work for a period of time, perhaps in a cafe for a few hours. Imagine someone setting out their laptop, notepad, paperwork, books, etc. and getting comfortable. This is from a Bay Area perspective.
also in Basketball to stand still to block
@@gben7084 Yes that was what I was thinking
Think of it like a fence post. So if you "post up" you are holding your position.
In San Francisco, "June Gloom" often lasts until September, at least on the West Side. In August it's usually everywhere.
That was not the potato bug I'm familiar with. That was a pill bug. A potato bug (aka Jerusalem cricket) is big and hideous and makes me want to run in the other direction when I see one. A pill bug, however, is small and kinda cute and will roll up into a ball if you touch it.
I was coming here to say this. My parents have a house in a more remote area and a “potato bug” somehow got into the wall and chewed a quarter sized hole in the plaster to get out. They’re not a cute little critter.
As someone from the PNW, I've never heard of anyone who doesn't understand a potato bug to be what was shown, and consider pill bug and rolly-polly to be synonyms.
@@elciniak2225 That is what a potato bug looks like to me.
Potato bug = pill bug, where I grew up (Oregon and Washington).
I had to pick potato bugs at my grandparents in Eastern Washington. Whatever they where, not pill bugs
Duff is used a lot when we talk about forest fire danger. "There was a lot of duff on the forest floor providing fuel for the fire."
In Australia duff referred to flour baed foods like bread.
I've heard "post up" as a basketball term. It refers to an offensive player establishing a position below the foul line. I didn't know it was in common use with another meaning.
Thats where it comes from lol. When you post up, you stay in place. Perfect usage of two of his words would be like Post up at your girls and Ill swoop you up in a few
I thought it meant publishing something on the internet.
I would think that this term dates back to more cowboy, old west days - as in, tying your horse up at a hitching post.
I grew up near San Francisco and I remember June Gloom. It ties into the old Mark Twain quote that was something like “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco “
Lifelong Californian here - while gnarly does mean something particularly intense (good or bad), that term pretty much reached its height in the 80s. Almost never hear it used anymore. Surprised that bear claw isn’t known across the US! And, I remember when the town of North Hollywood (actually part of the City of Los Angeles) began its campaign to revitalize itself in the late 80s by rebranding itself with the NoHo moniker, which was directly influenced by SoHo! Thanks for this fun ep, Lawrence!
Okay, but I giggle when my friend mentions that he lives in WeHo.
Yeah,. and the NoHo Arts District really started to take off around 2000 or so. I don't think it's used much to refer to the residential areas of North Hollywood. (Useless trivia: I watched them film the car crash from the beginning of Erin Brockovitch at the corner of Lankershim and Magnolia, which is pretty much the epicenter of the NoHo Arts District now.)
@@JonReevesLA I lived literally around the corner from there and also worked right near there back then.
We use bear claw in Virginia as well.
Ok, that explains it. NoHo would have gone out of fashion as a word by the time I was paying more attention to my surroundings. I'm like, "Wha? Who calls it that?"
I grew up in Oregon & Washington… potato bug was the first word I learned for it. I heard “roly poly” from others but always said “potato bug” myself.
That’s not a potato bug… you learned the wrong term for the wrong bug.
Same here, PNW and it's always been a potato bug. I was horrified when I first saw pictures of what people elsewhere called a potato bug. I think over time it's changed to pillbug or rolly-poly due to a lot of transplants in the area who would get confused if you called it a potato bug.
I guess it's one of those things like possum and opossum where they have the same name in other places but are completely different.
It's an Isreal Beetle in the rest of the world. Very ugly bug that ravages crops in Cali. They're gross looking too, pink and slimy looking and they bite too!
Dank:
In Oregon and Washington, dank means cold, damp (not wet), dark atmosphere, where the air itself seems to be rotting. Can be outside or inside in a basement. This is an old definition. Apparently the young, possibly Southern Californians, have redefined it. My impression is that of a cold rain forest, damp but short of dripping, at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's a terrible state of affairs when stoner slang supercedes ordinary usage.
Yeah it's a 420 thing. The meaning changed about 15 years ago.
It was used to describe top shelf weed because the good stuff is usually stickier, greener and looks like it’s wet while also smelling like a musky basement that has water damage. Eventually the term spread to anything that was good. I’ve mostly used it to describe tasty burritos.
@@keriezy I don't remember that from the 60's or 70's. Good stuff was Panama Red or Acapulco Gold. Really good was called "Sneak" because you never saw it coming.
@@Perfectly_Cromulent351 So it is a pot term. Hard to imagine it meaning good in any other uses.
@@wishingb5859 yeah, stoner culture has always been popular in California (at least compared to other states) but it really took off around ‘05 and ‘06 when weed pretty much became legal bc anyone over the age of 18 could get a medical license. All you needed was $50 and a shady doctor.
June Gloom. Always clouds up and rains mid-June when it should be warm and sunny. Although I experienced it for over thirty years. I never knew there was a word for it.
There's also Summer in January. The middle two weeks of January (at least in the San Francisco Bay Area) get really warm and everyone is out in t-shirt and shorts.
It does that in Southern California too, but not this year.
In Seattle and Portland, term "the mountain is out" relates to good weather, that allows you to see the top of either Mt. Rainier or Mt. Hood. Most of the time (especially in winter), clouds block the view of these very scenic mountains (which dominate the horizon).
Today, I realized how many British TH-camrs admire Laurence! I watch a few British TH-camrs, I love them. I’m not as familiar with them as I am with Lost in the Pond. Kabir Considers is the only name I know, off hand, he’s great. There’s a young couple that have recently tried American snacks, who are cute. This guy, maybe H and Friends, or something like that. He says wow a lot and points LOL They all reference Laurence in their videos. Laurence is great! I love his sense of humor, his love for both Great Britain and America and the best part, I learn so much from him.
Lost in the Pond is a great channel and it has even more meaning, coming from other Brits! Well done, Laurence, well done. 💯
Cougar: an older woman that is after younger men, mainly looking for one night stands.
That was not a potato bug. That was a pill bug or rollie pollie
In Oregon growing up they were synonymous save for pill bug, never heard anyone call one that.
I call the pictured bug a sal bug and I was born and raised in California.
I grew up in Oregon and we called them potato bugs or pill bugs. I never heard rollie pollie until I lived in the midwest :)
@@leeann4743 I've never heard potato bug here. Always roly polies or pill bugs. I asked my daughter, and she said it's a poly poly. All she's ever known is Vancouver/Portland.
@@orlock20 As a kid, we called them pill bugs. Only when I was older did I hear the term sow bug.
I watched this entire video waiting for you to talk about jojos! When I moved away from the Pacific Northwest, I didn't realize that the word is a regionalism. I found out by repeating it to a woman, getting successively louder, until it dawned on me that Midwesterners may not have that word.
What is jojos then, please ? From Glasgow, Scotland. x
@@kieranmclaughlin8920 Jojos are potato wedges, but usually crispier. The best ones are fried in oil leftover from frying chicken. They are available at almost all grocery store delis and, until recently, at KFC.
I found out Jojos are a regionalism when I ordered them at a KFC in the Midwest and the woman kept saying, 'What?' I thought she couldn't hear me, so I said it successively louder until I realized that I was using a slang term and she might not know it. Up until then, I just figured that everyone (at least in the US) knew that word.
@@ViolinsOnTelevision Lol... that's brilliant and very amusing ! Btw they seem amazing ! Would love to try them ! Thankyou. 🙂👍
Was suprised jojos wasn't mentioned
@@ViolinsOnTelevision "Mojo potatoes" are spicy breaded wedges. Never heard of Jojos in California.
I don’t know about all of these terms being in wide usage, but certainly as a native to SoCal, NoHo and June gloom are pretty widely used. You’ll hear June gloom during weather forecasts in the news all the time here. The other one my husband thinks is funny (he grew up mostly along the gulf coast) is marine layer. When there’s fog rolling onshore, they always call it “the marine layer” on the news, and he thinks that’s odd.
Lawrence, not sure if you’ve covered this before, but could you talk about how different places refer to their highways? In SoCal, we usually say “the #”, like “the 5”, or maybe “the 5 freeway.” All my in laws think the “the” is weird.
I get poked fun at relentlessly by my husband for my reference of freeways and highways. I grew up in California and live in Texas and married a Texan. So I would always use “the” in front of the numbers. I had to learn to say I-whatever when I was in Texas in order to not confuse people. And then when I go back to California to visit, I go back to “the”. My husband will say “so we’re taking I-5 South?” Nope, that’s doesn’t exist! Lol
I grew up in Whittier and had no idea what NoHo was. Clearly I was on the wrong side of the county. I did, however, know all about June Gloom, and even though I left CA in 2005, it still influences how I perceive hazy or foggy weather. It'll burn off. Marine layer is what causes June Gloom and doesn't necessarily involve fog - if a marine layer is rolling in, it's a pocket of cooler air moving inland.
I am also married to a Texan but now live in Missouri, although I spent several years in NY state. I refer to major roads by whatever the locals use. Interstate 64 is "64" or "40" (because the old highway was a different number. Interstate 90 is "the Thruway". Interstate 5 is and always will be "the 5".
You nailed this. I’ve never lived in SoCal (been in the Bay Area all my life) but I’ve spent a lot of time there and know very well that, when down south, you say “the 405,” or “the 5” or what have you. Up here, it’s just “5,” or “80,” etc.
California has so many different “languages” and cultures-it’s truly like going to different countries without ever having to go outside our borders. Though I love leaving the US, too! ;)
I grew up in Bakersfield, we never said the 5 or the 99 or the 58, that’s an L.A. basin habit.
California…freeway
The other 49 states…the interstate.
Oh good one, highways. And other traffic differences. In the northeast, we just call them their number, no "the". Or once in a while in a more rural area, might call it "the interstate, " but not that common.
A busy and lengthy north- south highway here for much of its length is "5 & 10," when the routes 5 and 10 run together for the distance.
Duff is what you call cocaine after you have ground or chopped it up from larger rocks. It is also used to describe loose unpacked powder snow in the ski world, largely for its resemblance to the first kind I mentioned.
It can also mean "Your ass," as in 'get off your duff, and get to work'
The animal you called a, 'Potato Bug', is actually a rolly polly, in cali-speak. A potato bug in the California region is actually a Jerusalem cricket. Very different insect.
You sound like a Joizy guy. Those are the only people I've ever heard say "Cali".
Yeah, those things you call potato bugs in California are monstrous. In the PNW our potato bugs are cute little things.
No self-respecting Californian says “Cali”.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the PNW, a potato bug is what was shown.
@@Perfectly_Cromulent351 Literally never heard anyone other than californians say Cali. Yall are eating your own
Thank you for pronouncing "Oregon" correctly. So many people get it wrong.
word.
He got it about 95% right, which is really good. People outside the PNW, even in Cali, will say "ore-eh-GONE" and it drives me up the damned wall.
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria My dad is from Oregon, and it drives him up the wall too. I guess I inherited a bit of that. :)
Or|eh-gun
(Idk how to spell the ore part. Or eh gun... something like that)
Yes!! I pre-cringed, as usual, knowing he was going to say Oregon and then once he said it correctly I let out a sigh of relief and smiled. :)
Thanks for doing this! It’s very entertaining and educational. I think we also might enjoy you asking midwesterners if they could identify or properly translate regional UK words! I’d love to see that. 🙏🏽
I really want to see your wife's reactions to some of your guesses 😆 they are hilarious
I'm sure Laurence is well aware of the "other" meaning of cougar. In fact, he made oblique reference to it.
When we in the Pacific Northwest use the term we almost always mean the cat. Washington State University's nickname is The Cougars.
and for the record, Washington State University's initials are pronounced "wazoo"
Couged it.
@@kenbrown2808 and the semi official alcohol is Fireball.
@@MichaelJW72 things just ain't been the same since Olympia Brewery closed the doors...
This was one that had me guessing along with Laurence. I, a California native raised in the PNW, never heard "sunbreak" or "duff" and certainly not "yadadamean"
yadadamean is definitely bay area only
You must have moved out of the PNW long time ago. Weather forecasters have been using the word "sunbreaks" since I moved here 32 years ago.
Bay Area native, read and heard lots of ("hella") run-together words, many are in Carl Nolte's oft-misquoted 2/26/1984 _S.F. Chronicle_ column "How to Talk Like a San Franciscan;" but *never* heard "yadadamean."
Duff is the only one of the 3 I heard but it was used to mean your rear. Get off your duff and rake the leaves. That type of use.
I've heard "sucker hole" to describe a break in the PNW cloud cover, but not "sunbreak".
Called a sucker hole because there is a sucker who thinks it's going to clear up when they see that hole.
Laurence here are some Alaskan terms for you: Skookum, Cheechako, Tuffs, Getting Bermed In, Sucker Hole, Humpies (and related to Humpies, Dogs, Reds & Kings) and finally Going Outside.
I was thinking skookum for the pacific north west as well. I do like that word.
You might want to start him off with a more basic one, like "sourdough."
Skookum is used in BC too
Skookum is a Chinook Jargon word.
@@heatherpayne1995
I bought my father a Chinook Jargon dictionary for Christmas one year. I find the whole thing fascinating.
You are a hoot! You’ve got this funny comedic style where you make the odd pauses, almost like “stubbing” your tongue before you finish a phrase. I rather like that quirkiness.
8:13 you don't know how much shock I expended just going through TH-cam and then suddenly there is my small towns library on screen
As a native Arizonan I use the majority of these words. Idk if it’s because my mom is from CA, or half our population is from CA. Also we spend every summer in San Diego and nobody wants to go during June gloom.
Being from Alaska, I'm looking forward to the video on our regional words. Here are some suggestions: 'termination dust', 'cheechako,' 'sourdough', 'outside', 'the bush', 'calving', 'ulu', 'muskeg', 'breakup', 'chinook' 'snow machine', and 'qiviut'
And, of course, oosik.
Although that's not slang ...
I know that "chinook" literally means "snow eater" and refers to a wind that causes a direct phase change in water from solid to gas without melting.
We call them potato bugs here in western ny as well
Western NY here too and I too say potato bugs.
Depending on how long the foggy weather lasts, there can be May Gray, June Gloom, No Sky July, Fogust, and Souptember. 😆
(jumping in before you read the definition from whatever source you've got)
As a Bay Area native - until 1993 in the South and East Bay, since then in San Francisco proper - I was thrilled to see "hella" as the #1, as it originated in Oakland IIRC shortly after I moved away from there. And yes, it's exactly as you say, equivalent to a Bostonian's "wicked". It's a contraction of "hell of" as in "a hell of a lot".
ETA: I've never hears "yadadamean" - must be recent, everyone I've ever heard says "yanowamsayin"
As a Californian, I agree with the given definition of "gnarly", but for some reason I also personally like to say it to mean "weird" or "gnarled". Also, I've never heard of "post up" other than in the context of basketball.
That's where the term originates. A player would post up under the basket, or at the top of the key, and wait for the play to unfold.
Post up is a stoner/surfer term.
In the Bay, back in the day “post up” meant standing on the block with that sack slangin. At least in Oakland or the East Bay
It's a basketball term first, before it's anything else. The top and bottom of the key are known as the high and low posts, and if a player was on one of them, they were posting up.
Same. Gnarly can also mean bad. It's like Dude. All in the inflection.
I have a different definition for Dank and Duff. Dank - dark, gloomy, damp. Duff - butt as in: Get of your duff and go get some work done.
I'm in the UK but I knew what a bear claw was (courtesy of the animated series Archer, here Pam from HR eats them a lot). And potato bugs come up in The Simpsons at least once.
hilarious cause i was born and raised in California and "hella" didn't know about bear claw. lol. Granted i've only ever had one.
Pacific Northwest native here.
I've noticed that when I was little, everybody in my local area called that wild big cat a cougar, then for a few short years we called it a puma, but now everybody calls it a mountain lion for the past dozen or so years.
I first heard of a potato bug when I was in my 30s. When I finally saw a picture, I knew exactly what it was. I've known it all my life as a rollypoley, and I still call it that. Related bonus trivia: What everybody here now calls a "june bug", I grew up calling a "skeeter-eater" even after learning that they don't actually consume mosquitos.
In my mind without looking it up, "dank" means "saturated with moisture", but it also somehow gets more commonly used in my home town to describe an old mansion in a formerly very rich neighborhood that has gone bad and lost most of its value, so the owners remodeled their mansion's interior and converted it into an apartment building with several cheap apartments in it.
While not a native, I have lived in Oregon quite a few years, yet I've never heard most of the words you shared. I have even been to California a good many times. One you didn't say is one that I heard in Portland many years ago (so I don't know if it still in use there) is the word "jockeybox" which means the glove box in a car. I have never heard this any place else.
I was expecting a different definition for cougar
So was I, lol!