Comment by tkgally | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tkgally | Hacker News Reader

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I was a TA for an introductory linguistics course at UC Santa Barbara in the 1970s. On the first day of class, the instructor would have the students answer a few questions intended to show if they were from northern or southern California. (Few were from out of state.)

The two I remember were:

(1) If someone tells you they are going to “the city,” where are they going?

(2) Name a freeway.

The other TAs and I compiled the results. For (1), the northern Californians almost always answered “to San Francisco,” while the southern Californians gave a variety of answers, including “Huh?” For (2), the northerners gave a number, like “the 101,” while the southerners usually answered with a name, like “the Golden State” or “the Harbor Freeway.” (I haven’t been to California for a while, but my impression is that SoCal usage has shifted since the 1970s to numbers, too.)

The instructor of that class was Marc Okrand, who later created the Klingon language.

> shifted since the 1970s to numbers

Post-2000, SoCal usage is usually with the definite article: "the 101 or the 5" NorCal is usually with no article: "101 or I-5". The SoCal pattern is rooted in the named freeway usages of earlier decades, but while the style of traffic reporting may still use "the Golden State freeway", popular usage became terser over time, leading to "the 5". The entire topic and regional differences can easily produce animated discussions, both in-person, and online.

That SoCal people refer, and refer often, to freeways by number is the basis of the SNL skit “The Californians”[0].

I always assumed that that skit was a great exaggeration. But last winter I cycled from LAX across Southern California to Mexico, and the local people I chatted with really were like that. “I love doing activity X or eating food Y, so sometimes I’ll take the [interstate number] to [place] and get off at [street name].” No one really grasped that as a foreigner on a bike, all those numbers were incomprehensible to me.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCer2e0t8r8

> That SoCal people refer, and refer often, to freeways by number is the basis of the SNL skit “The Californians”[0].

Those skits aren't about the number, they're about the word "the."

Elsewhere in the country, where the freeways were built later and didn't have as many old established pre-number names, people talk like "Take 75 and then go west on 285 to [whatever exit]. And surface street names, SoCal or elsewhere, rarely have "the" anywhere (nobody would say "go to The Sunset Avenue"); it's a specific history-of-freeways-in-Socal thing.

A foreigner not knowing local street names seems completely unrelated to numbers-vs-word-names or "the".

No, the skits are, per interviews with the writers, about the fact that SoCal conversations bring up driving instructions far more than in New York City where the show is based. This also reflects in the skit in the mention of finding parking. But in the context of this thread, the skits do support SoCal use of “the”.

That's a fun fact, and makes sense for a bunch of NYC-based writers which is one of the few non-driving-happy places in the US.

The + freeway name is a southern California thing.

https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/the-5-the-101-the-405-why...

IIRC, in the Bay Area, they don't put 'the' before freeway names or numbers. We certainly do not here in Oregon. It's a dead giveaway that someone is from CA.

I have heard traffic reporting in Portland call 26 “the sunset” and 84 “The Banfield” though. So it’s not completely unheard of.

I know in New York this is also common simply because it’s always the Bruckner Expressway and not I-278, or the Long Island Expressway and not I-495.

Ah, yeah I should have written my comment better. It's numbered freeways. No one says "the 5".

> No one says "the 5"

They definitely do. Sometimes I do (30 years in norcal and 3 years in socal).

I've lived in San Diego most of my life, with a few years in Berkeley. Literally everyone says "the 5" in SD, and I was consistently ribbed for saying it in the Bay Area.

Edit: oh and "The City" === san Francisco drove me nuts, too.

I hear people say “the 26” and “the 217”. But, not “the I-5”.

'The 26' is not something people from Oregon say.

I’ve lived here for 23+ years and have heard people say it all of that time.

Lots of transplants from points south say it, or people who have spent time with them.

So, basically everyone in the metro area? Because in the past two decades, I’ve never heard someone say 26, it is always the 26.

No one says "the I-5" — it's just "the 5".

Not just SoCal. I have a Canadian friend who does the same. I assume it’s a regional thing. In MA it’s The Pike but otherwise the route number with no “the.”

Can confirm. In Canada, at least for big highways, there's always a definite article ("take the 401 until Yonge") meanwhile for side roads you never use the definite article. In the states, I've noticed that named roads get the article, but not interstates ("take I-81 north until Syracuse").

As I recall my professor didn't have us ask any specific questions. He just went off our accents.

> I haven’t been to California for a while, but my impression is that SoCal usage has shifted since the 1970s to numbers, too.

It 100% has. When I read "name a freeway," the first thing that popped into my head was the 5...

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