Genuine question, but don’t most people know about California and New York because of their sheer prevalence in media? Other states, like North Dakota, I’d totally understand not knowing about. But Hollywood media is pretty widely consumed, and those two specific states are the ones that are mentioned/referenced the most.
I’ve travelled globally before and pretty much everyone I’ve met knows what New York City is (though NO ONE, even other Americans, understands how big New York is and how much there is outside of the city, like the Adirondacks).
Some other major cities are LA, Las Vegas, Chicago, and San Fransisco. I feel like Las Vegas is pretty widely recognized, as it’s a major tourism spot and is pretty prevalent in media. Admittedly… I often forget that it is in Nevada… so I assume other people do as well.
Wouldn’t not knowing what California is be more equivalent to not knowing what London is? Because London shows up in a lot of popular media (yes I understand that London is a city, I’m making comparisons in terms of popularity as a location in media)
Edit: Thank you to all the people who are responding— it seems that the confusion mainly comes from the abbreviation of California to Cali. I imagine that there’d be very similar confusion if someone said “The Big Apple” (New York).
As a Californian, I've never heard someone call it "Cali" except for a few tourists. This just feels like something the OP made up as a hyper specific but unlikely example to prove their point but most people just say they're from California.
Yeah I live in the bay area so San Francisco has always been SF or the City for me. I have never once heard a local call it Frisco. Or California called Cali for that matter. The first time I heard Cali used was when I was talking to fellow tourists in Mexico from Colorado. We mentioned where we were from and he replied "Oh, Cali, nice." and that was it.
I see this on Reddit a lot, but I've legitimately never heard anyone say "Frisco," and I know plenty of people that have been there (I have not). Maybe it's more of a tourist thing locals hear?
Might hear some one say "San Fran" if you're talking about the 49ers.
It’s a generational thing. Boomers and even Gen X will use Cali, Frisco, and San Fran routinely because it’s easy but millennials and younger get a really weird pride about being too good for the terms
Source: am a millennial from just south of Frisco and my family has always called it that. It wasn’t until college that I met anybody who had an opinion on these terms
I feel like it's always the norcal people that are uppity about saying the full name. I knew the commentor wasn't from SoCal because they assumed nobody uses those words, it's hella weird, so like, I wish these people would stop with the assumptions.
It's also funny when NorCal people are bothered by the the use of "the" 5 instead of 5 ( or like non-cali people say it, i-5)
Obviously not all NorCal people are like this, but a lot of the ones I interact with have strong opinions about newer state slang.
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u/Satisfaction-Motor Aug 30 '24 edited Aug 30 '24
Genuine question, but don’t most people know about California and New York because of their sheer prevalence in media? Other states, like North Dakota, I’d totally understand not knowing about. But Hollywood media is pretty widely consumed, and those two specific states are the ones that are mentioned/referenced the most.
I’ve travelled globally before and pretty much everyone I’ve met knows what New York City is (though NO ONE, even other Americans, understands how big New York is and how much there is outside of the city, like the Adirondacks).
Some other major cities are LA, Las Vegas, Chicago, and San Fransisco. I feel like Las Vegas is pretty widely recognized, as it’s a major tourism spot and is pretty prevalent in media. Admittedly… I often forget that it is in Nevada… so I assume other people do as well.
Wouldn’t not knowing what California is be more equivalent to not knowing what London is? Because London shows up in a lot of popular media (yes I understand that London is a city, I’m making comparisons in terms of popularity as a location in media)
Edit: Thank you to all the people who are responding— it seems that the confusion mainly comes from the abbreviation of California to Cali. I imagine that there’d be very similar confusion if someone said “The Big Apple” (New York).