Californication

How to prevent the Californication of America

Editorial: The legacy of California's 'three strikes' law is 30 years of wasted spending and ruined lives
Opinion by The Times Editorial Board • 02/07/24


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What does "Californication" mean


Does "californication" mean a process of becoming a Californian (a person who was born and raised in California)?

If yes, could we use "Miamisation" or "Miamization" to use for Miami?


Californiacation is a made up word from a song. Here is the definition from Ask.com:

Californication is a term used to refer to the blend of the word California and fornication, and it refers primarily to the haphazard, mindless development that has already gobbled up most of Southern California.

It comes from the song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

With respect to your second question, the -ization suffix is indeed offen used colloquially to refer to the process of becoming a part of a group. So Miamization would be understood by an English speaker to mean that someone's personality is changing in such a way that makes him more like residents of Miami.


Ask.com may have copied that from the Californication wikipedia entry, which credits a similar quote to Sandra Burton's August 21, 1972 Time magazine article, "The Great Wild Californicated West". –

It doesn't come from the RHCP song - they stole it from bumper stickers that were found around Oregon in the 1980s to express dismay over too many people moving there from California. That's why their law suit against the TV show failed. It was revealed during the suit that RHCP were the ones who first "stole" it. –

 
"Californication" refers to the process of taking the bad aspects of California (e.g. the drugs and sex culture, the overbuilding and overpriced housing) by Californians moving to other, nearby states (Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, etc.) It is a cross between the words "California," and "fornication."