Californication

English

Alternative forms

• Californiation

Etymology

From Californ(ia) +‎ -ication. First use appears c. 1947. Especially popularized by the use as title for a song (1999) and a TV series (2007–2014). Rebracketing as Cali +‎ fornication is superficially apparent and is ineluctably mixed into some percentage of the word's usage, in some cases as humorous word play and in others as a connotational taint damning by association (as for example in hellfire preaching in which California, and by extension modernity, is portrayed with Sodom and Gomorrah overtones).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌkælɪˈfɔːnɪˈkeɪʃən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌkælɪˈfɔɹnɪˈkeɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

Californication (uncountable)

1. The adoption of practices and beliefs associated with California, in particular Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
   • 1947, M. Marion Marberry, The Golden Voice - A Biography of Isaac Kalloch, page 311:

     Isaac was pictured as the only male in the state who could satisfy his many succubi, and the Californication took place on his couch in City Hall, in the Temple, in saloons, in his carriage, in his home, oh, just anywhere.

   • 1992, Ien Ang, John Hartley, “Useful Astonishment”, in Cultural Studies, page 458:

     Indeed, if popular culture can be said to be dispersed in a process of global Californication, then no less should intellectual culture be seen as the product of the Routledgification of the world[.]

   • 1999, “Californication”, in Californication, performed by Red Hot Chili Peppers:

     A teenage bride with a baby inside getting high on information / And buy me a star on the boulevard, it's Californication

   • 2003 August 14, Timothy Garton Ash, “God's crucible”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     So we should learn from the Americans. What Europe needs is more Californication.

2. (US, derogatory, urban studies) The large-scale development of land; urban sprawl.
   • a. 1981, Coda: Poets and Writers Newsletter, page 17:

     It's also culturally unique, its natives resisting many elements of "californication", the "glintzy" urban sprawl typified by Los Angeles.

   • 1996, Dan L[ouie] Flores, “A Long Love Affair with an Uncommon Country: Environmental History and the Great Plains”, in Fred B. Samson, Fritz L. Knopf, editors, Prairie Conservation: Preserving North America’s Most Endangered Ecosystem, Washington, D.C., Covelo, Calif.: Island Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Value in Prairie), page 5:

     If the intermountain West, from New Mexico to Montana, is today running scared of growth and Californication, the Great Plains is a large slice of the West that does not share that particular fear.

   • 2000 March 3, D. J. Waldie, “Do the Voters Really Hate Sprawl?”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Thirty years ago, voters in Portland, Ore., adopted strict growth limits to prevent “Californication” of their landscape. Circumscribed by the nation's first “urban growth boundary,” the Portland region made itself an artificial island on the land with the explicit goal of not becoming another L.A.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Californication.

Related terms

• Californianization
• Californicate

See also

• Los Angelization

Further reading

• californication (word) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia