always preference highway numbers by "the"?
In the rest of the civilized world, we would say "take Highway 1 to State Route 25 to I-95." In California ones drives "the 205" or "the 10."Maybe Gillian knows why.

__________________
"I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards." Philip K. Dick
No matter how strong, or brave, or pure of heart you may be; sometimes the dragon wins!

No. No. No. Argh.

That's a southern Californianism. (But it's not unknown in other parts of the country or world. Just don't lump all of California together on that one.)

__________________
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

We have a tendency to call them local names too. For example, the 22 can be the Garden Grove Freeway and the 405 can be the San Diego Freeway (even though it doesn't go to San Diego) or the Long Beach Freeway. I absolutely hate it. Do they do this elsewhere?

__________________
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Isn't freeway pretty much a California word for highway, thruway, etc. compared to the rest of the country?

I thought freeway contrasted with tollway, sometimes side by side.

Ah, maybe that's how the term originated.
Tollways are a relatively new phenomonon, freeway history-wise in Southern California, tho, and privately held.
Is the term "freeway" used in NC?

I'm in Sacramento (that's Northern California for those in other parts of the world). I don't prefix freeway names with "the." And we usually call them freeways around here, though they are paid for by taxes. There are toll bridges and such in the Bay Area but tollways are relatively uncommon in California.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Well, well...

We say "the" up here, as well. The 401, The Queensway, The Trans-Canada Highway, etc. And here's a headscratcher: surface streets are legally defined as highways and freeways are not, but surface streets are never referred to as highways, while freeways always are.

Go figure.

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Just a quick google picked up Brookshire Freeway and John Belk Freeway in Charlotte. The Durham Freeway goes through uh Durham. Also, List of Dallas-Fort Worth area freeways mentions State Highway 161; freeway/tollway passing between Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Irving. Which reminds me of the toll way between Washington DC and Dulles that parallels the old free/high way.

Well, you know, it is "the" whatever.

I'll also note, as a former Southern Californian (though one who never had certain vocal mannerisms), that we don't always use "the," either. As in "I-5," which we never called "the I-5." "PCH," not "the PCH." (That's "Pacific Coast Highway.") I'll further note that even up here in Washington, you get "Where I-5 meets the 405." It's certainly not exclusive to the Greater Los Angeles Area.

In case you're curious, here's the distinction. "Pacific Coast Highway" is a name. "Interstate 5" is a name. "210" is not. It's just a designation.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

(Re Musashi's We have a tendency to call them local names too.)
Same thing in NYC. You'll get laughed at if you mention interstate route numbers. Instead it's the Cross Bronx Expressway, Bruckner Boulevard, LIE, etc.

__________________
A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Hmmh, I always mentally pictured the term as "free of traffic/stop lights".
Applying "the" to individual named or numbered routes, may have derived from referring to the entire system as "the freeway", as in "Just take the freeway to get there [wherever]".
"The 210" is also known as The Foothill Freeway.

This wiki page quotes a USAn Federal Manual and says that you are rightStill, since most tollways have had intermittantly spaced toll booths, rather than at each and every access point, that might mean a tollway is not usually considered a freeway. By coincidence.

Actually, I think you could write a rather large book about the use of "the" with geographical names in English. Why do we say "The Mekong River" but not "The Sherwood Forest"? Why do we say "The Sudan" but not "The Iran"? Don't ask me. I think a lot of time it's just usage. So I don't think there's any reason why some people say it that way.

By the way, there are many languages in the world that don't even have a definite article like "the". Most Asian languages lack articles, so the problem doesn't arise.

And actually, in many places in the "civilized world" it would sound even stranger, things like: Prenez le Highway 1, et prenez le I-95 quand vous arrivez au State Route 25.

(Sorry for the poor French in advance!)

__________________
As above, so below

In true California fa$hion, tho, our tollways are freeways, built to accommodate developers who, by law, can't begin building until the road structures are in place and can't wait for the State, whose road-building funds keep getting re-allocated to the general fund, to get around to it.

The funny thing is, both of the freeways we have here are also back home. (In fact, the freeway I'm closest to is known as PCH back home but doesn't have a name up here.)

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

*grumble* Let's try this again. Apparently lost my last attempt to post to network trouble of some sort.

I don't know about Western Canada, but from Ontario eastward, it's very common to hear "the Trans-Canada", "the Twenty", "the Bypass" and such. It's very common among French Canadians as well: "la Trans", "la Quinze", etc. Not using the appropriate definite article is very much the exception.

I suspect part of it is that our highway titles are never prefaced by terms like "Interstate" or "I-". That changes how the words flow a bit.

__________________
In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

That's not exclusively Califirornia-speak !
That's good English!

In the UK we refer to the A1, the M6, the B2345 or whatever.
Strangely, it would seem natural to me to take for instance Highway 47, if we had such things. I suspect is is someting to do with way the abbreviated name - "Get your kicks on Motorway 6" just doesn't work, although "You'll be fine on the M9" would - well sort of.

John

Then there is expressway. In Chicago, there are a few, my favorite being the Dan Ryan. Anybody used to driving it knows that The Dan Ryan and expressway are opposite terms. There is nothing express about it.

Never thought about the fact that up here in the Twin Cities, very few of the major highways have formal, or even informal names. In Chicago they have The Dan Ryan, The Stevenson, The Tri-State, etc. And most everybody puts The in front of them in conversation.

__________________
Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Here in Arizona (which touches So-Cal, I should mention) its a hodge-podge.

We have "The" One-Oh-One
We have "Sixty" (ala Take a right on Sixty")
We have I10 (ala take the "Eye-Ten" exit and go West)

__________________
Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"