Mesa Musings:

My wife, Hedy, and I recently checked into a hotel north of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The young man behind the counter couldn’t have been more cordial. But, after a warm greeting, he lost us with his next comment.

“Are you folks from South Cali?”

Excuse me?

“South Cali.”

South Philly?

“South Cali!”

South Bali?

Slowly I began to catch his drift. How and when did this “South Cali” nonsense come into vogue?

When I was a Costa Mesa lad half a century ago, this neck of the woods was referred to as Southern California, which later morphed into the more colloquial Southern Cal (at least that’s the progression as I remember it). In recent years we’ve been called the unremarkable and truncated, SoCal (a contrivance of some headline writer, no doubt).

Nevertheless, the aforementioned labels are acceptable.

I first left home in 1964 at age 19 when I joined the Army. I was sent to Korea by troop ship via Oakland Army Terminal with 2,500 other guys.

Before boarding the ship, we stood in the company street for roll call at 11 p.m. one June evening, shrouded in a bone-chilling, dripping fog.

“Hey, I thought this was supposed to be sunny California,” piped a genius behind me from Michigan or Mississippi.

“It’s almost midnight,” I mumbled over my shoulder. “Besides, this is Northern California. This isn’t Frankie and Annette’s California — it’s Oregon-lite. Southern California is the real California. So, just ’cause you were sent to Oakland to be shipped to Korea doesn’t mean you’ve actually stepped foot in Lotus Land!”

OK, I admit I was over the top, but I hate to see my state maligned.

So, I ask again, when did this “South Cali” abomination take root?

I want you to know that I’ve thoroughly checked the Official SoCal Surfer-Dude/Valley-Girl Lexicon. “Southern California” seems to have worked well for eons; at least since the La Brea Tar Pits were a “vacay” destination for saber-toothed cats and ground sloths.

The South Dakotas, South Carolinas and South Floridas not withstanding, it’s Southern California, people! Never South California, or South Cal or, God forbid the monstrosity, South Cali. Sorry, this law is immutable.

When I was a kid we used to visit my great aunt in San Francisco. She was born there right after the turn of the last century. In an effort to curry favor, I once made the grievous error of telling her that I really liked “’Frisco.” She let me have it with both barrels, and I still bear the scars!

It is either San Francisco, she told me in no uncertain terms, the City or S.F. Never ’Frisco!

My brother and I used to wear our Los Angeles Dodger baseball caps when we visited just to irritate her. Those caps set her on edge worse than a San Andreas tremor. She derisively referred to them as our “La La Hats.”

The way my Aunt Helen felt about “’Frisco” is roughly how I feel about “Cali.”

I suppose I’ve been aware of this Cali stuff for about five years. It’s probably been around much longer, but “Clueless Carnett” is seldom near the front of the line when cool new cultural icons are unveiled.

My daughter, son-in-law and three grandkids (now four) moved five years ago to North Carolina. My son-in-law, John, joined the fire department of a municipality east of Raleigh. The guys at the station immediately christened him, “Cali.”

“What the heck is ‘Cali?’” I naively asked him.

“I guess it’s their nickname for California,” he shrugged. “I think maybe it was coined by a rap artist.”

Since that conversation, I’ve heard it many times, including by the hotel guy. My response is consistent and simple: Stop it!

We’re Southern California, thank you very much! We’ll let you call us Southern Cal, and maybe even occasionally SoCal … but you’d better never bring up that Cali stuff. Got it?

And if some Northern California pinhead uses the term “South Cali,” well, we’ll be obligated to demand that he take a flying leap off that maroon-colored bridge they call Golden — into ’Frisco Bay!

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.