Q: How many Northern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Hella!!!

Q: How many Southern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Totally!!!

There's a perceptual dialectological difference between "hella pregnant" (Northern California) and "totally pregnant" (Southern California).

Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal? The Perceptual Dialectology of California

http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract

https://web.archive.org/web/20141008111115/https://people.du...

This study provides the first detailed account of perceptual dialectology within California (as well as one of the first accounts of perceptual dialectology within any single state). Quantitative analysis of a map-labeling task carried out in Southern California reveals that California's most salient linguistic boundary is between the northern and southern regions of the state. Whereas studies of the perceptual dialectology of the United States as a whole have focused almost exclusively on regional dialect differences, respondents associated particular regions of California less with distinctive dialects than with differences in language (English versus Spanish), slang use, and social groups. The diverse sociolinguistic situation of California is reflected in the emphasis both on highly salient social groups thought to be stereotypical of California by residents and nonresidents alike (e.g., surfers) and on groups that, though prominent in the cultural landscape of the state, remain largely unrecognized by outsiders (e.g., hicks).

[...]

By far, the most frequently remarked-upon slang term in the map-labeling data was hella, accounting for 47.4 percent of the slang and other lexical labels. Hella is a slang term originating in Northern California and one that remains—aside from a few brief moments in the national spotlight due to its circulation in popular culture— largely restricted to that region (Bucholtz 2006). The term, which apparently lexicalized from (a) hell of (a), functions as both a quantifier (There were hella people there) and an intensifier (He runs hella fast). Four respondents also mentioned the slang term hecka, the G-rated equivalent of hella, but this term was not counted separately, because tokens of hecka always co-occurred with hella. For Southern Californians in particular, hella represents a crucial shibboleth separating the two major regions of the state. As shown in Figure 7, respondents tended to identify hella overwhelmingly as a Northern California slang term, and its appearance in other regions of the map drops dramatically from north to south. Thus Northern California was variously labeled the hellas, Land of the Hella’s, and Hella capital, and one respondent provided an isogloss designating “the ‘hella’ line.” (In the map data, the Central Coast around Santa Barbara seemed to be the dividing line between users and nonusers of hella, and the fact that the study was conducted in this region may have enhanced respondents’ focus on this particular issue.) [*10: The respondent’s confusion may also be due to the existence of the Crips, a notorious Los Angeles–based gang.] Hella users were also negatively evaluated by Southern Californians, and the term came in for a good deal of criticism, such as Hella is not a real word and [hecka is] probably the worst word ever.

Isogloss:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogloss

Hella:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella

>Hella is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. It is possibly a contraction of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]", in turn reduced to "hell of", though some scholars doubt this etymology since its grammatical usage does not align with those phrases. It often appears in place of the words "really", "a lot", "totally", "very", and in some cases, "yes". Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun, according to linguist Pamela Munro, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective such as "good".

Usage:

Intensifier

While intensifiers similar to hella exist in many colloquial varieties, hella is uncommonly flexible. It can be used to modify almost any part of speech, as shown below:

That pizza was hella good: hella modifies the adjective good, where Standard American English would use very.

Chris's pizza is hella better than anyone else's: hella modifies the adjective better, replacing much.

I ate hella pizza: hella modifies the noun pizza, replacing a lot of.

I hella bought four pizzas: hella modifies the verb to buy, replacing really or totally.

I ran to the pizza joint hella quickly: hella modifies the adverb quickly, replacing very.

Was the party fun last night? -- Hella!: hella is used on its own as a reply replacing very or totally.

SI prefix

An online petition begun in 2010 by Austin Sendek of Yreka, California seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 1027. The prefix was recognized by Google in May 2010, and Wolfram Alpha in May 2011. In 2013, Andrew McAfee suggested the term hellabyte with this usage.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788993

Quixotic Californian crusade to officially recognize the hellabyte (theregister.com)

https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/hellabyte_si_prefix/

The Californians:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-tG6ufH90

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIklKPzND20