HARD TO PORT

Given that a “left-handed compliment” is a backhanded one, is it any wonder that California, accustomed to freelance bashing, is referred to as the “Left Coast”?

It’s not limited to slams by Rush Limbaugh--a frequent offender--or sportswriters who love flashy sounding but vague idioms. The Chicago Tribune arts section riffed thus on our lifestyle: “Left Coast furniture looks a lot like Left Coast life: fresh and fun.” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s gossip column revealed “two left coast-based stars are currently dating.” Even remote archipelagos weigh in. When, as the Malaysia New Straits Times Press reported, Kelsey Grammer “shelled out big bucks for a Manhattan loft” earlier this year, it was so he’d “have a cozy love nest when not on the Left Coast.”

“Left Coast has underground connotations to it,” says Deborah Brand, producer of the Bay Area’s Left Coast Jazz Fest. “I don’t want to say left wing, but slightly unconventional.” Mike Hayes, the Boston-bred owner of Left Coast Travel in San Francisco, agrees. “The image Easterners have of California is being kind of odd and different.”

So where did “Left Coast” come from? Is it, as some believe, an amalgamation of the Parisian “Left Bank” and “West Coast”? Common sense would indicate a Texan looking north coined the term. But, admits Dallas Morning News columnist Blackie Sherrod, who has used “Left Coast” in the sports pages 25 times in the past five years--even referring to Times sports columnist Jim Murray as “the Left Coast poet”--”Frankly, I don’t know when and where I started using it.” Fine. Should we then assume Sherrod has nicknamed New York the “Right Coast”? “I try not to refer to New York,” the Texan clarifies, “at all.” Right on.