Why do californians say freeway

In their early years , most Los Angeles-area freeways bore signs for multiple numbered highway routes. The Pasadena Freeway, for example, was Route 6, 66, and 99, all at once. The Harbor Freeway carried both Route 6 and Route The Hollywood, Route 66 and Who wouldn't prefer the simplicity of a name over a confusing array of numbers?

Soon a shorthand emerged for describing a route through the city. How, then, did that morph into "the to the , the up to the , the to the 5, the 10, the 5, the , the "? Two developments convinced Southern Californians to refer to freeways by number rather than name. In , the state simplified its highway numbering system , ensuring that, with few exceptions, each freeway would bear only one route number.

Around the same time, a flurry of new construction added unfamiliar freeway names to the region's road maps. Drivers found it easier to learn new numbers like the or the 91 rather than new names like the San Gabriel River Freeway or the Redondo Beach Freeway.

Although the transition was gradual — numbers only eclipsed names in common usage in the late s, and Caltrans still included the old names in signage through the s — Southern Californians eventually joined the rest of North America in referring to freeways by number. But when they did, they retained their old habit of prefixing a definite article, the , giving rise to a regional idiom that still confounds and amuses outsiders today.

Tending Nature. The Mallorca Files. Professor T Belgium. Which meant that many of them had local names, usually to designate their destination: the Harbor Freeway, the San Bernardino Freeway, the Pasadena Freeway, etc. Despite the regional names, though, these highways still had multiple corresponding numerical names because of two nearly unrelated and independent highway naming systems. And as more routes were added and extended and more numbers were assigned—you can see how it would get very confusing.

An old article from in CHPW lamented:. Another course of possible confusion stems from the fact that the federal government has designated some highways in California by numbers already in use by the State. The State immediately changed its numbers to avoid duplication. Again, maps now on drawing boards will note the changes. Can you imagine just trying to read the road signs for that?

The Union-Tribune, for instance, will never refer to "the 8 freeway" or "the "; the paper insists on referring to "Interstate 8" and "State Route ".

Local television commercials also seem indecisive, with many voice-overs referring to "I-5" or "Highway ". One ad for a furniture store gives its location as "two miles east of " — a apparent classic NorCalism. These usages are notable becuase, as a lifelong San Diegan, I've rarely if ever heard locals say anything other than "the 15", "the 5", "the 78", etc. It makes me wonder why the terminology of local media outlets doesn't conform to that used by their readers and viewers.

Then again, local radio traffic reports unfailingly use the SoCal "the". One more item of note: in San Diego, freeway signs use the word "Junction" or "Jct", which, from what I've seen driving through the Bay Area, makes our signage much more like that found in Northern California than in the rest of Southern California. I just refer to highways as , or 80, or 5. Or I I wonder if any Linguistic Majors have commented on this controversy seeing that it involves the issue of Northern and Southern California English dialects.

State highways are often referred to as "route" or "state route", or just by the number "50" or by the name that the local portion of that road comprises Important location blvd. Sometimes, the "the" is dropped. For example, one might refer to "" or " north". Some highways such as the DC beltway have additional names. For example, I around DC is referred to as the "outer loop" of the beltway. I is referred to as the "inner loop".

Or is it the other way around? It's hard to tell sometimes, as they are loops This isn't a controversy per se, this is just an example of a regional dialect difference. No one calls the "soda" "pop" and "tonic" regional dialect differences controversial.

Some people have kindly given a long history of California freeway names, which would explain the origin of putting a determiner versus not. I mean, even the word for "median" is different everywhere center divider, parkway, etc. Contributed by and 38 others. We are a c 3 non-profit organization. Except where otherwise noted, this content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. See Copyrights. Explore Map Activity. Cities Atlanta Austin Boston. Chicago Detroit Los Angeles.

New York San Francisco Archive. Filed under: History Los Angeles Traffic. Keeping track of all freeway numbers was confusing, so people started to favor destination-based names of freeways. In this segment of a map, the present-day Freeway appears to have been assigned route numbers 66 and 99; then after the present-day freeway passes through Downtown, it picks up another route number: 6.