Take “The” 405 Like a SoCal Native

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey there, this is William. You can call me Will. I’m calling from Dallas, Fort Worth, and I got a question for you guys.

Hi, Will. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Will. What are you thinking about?

So a little bit of a story. My boyfriend and I were getting into an argument. I’m originally from California. He grew up in Texas, and one day I was trying to give him directions to you know go to a show or a store or something I forget but the point is is I was saying oh you’re gonna want to take the 15 to get to the store and he looked at me all crazy and he’s like what do you mean I’m like yeah no you just take the 15 on to the north you know you go south and given in all the directions and he stops me he goes no no no why did you put the in front of the highway.

I’ve never heard anybody do that before. And we’re still arguing about this. I put the in front of highway members and he doesn’t. Everybody that I know in California does it, but nobody knows that thing in Texas. And I just want to know, is there an origin to this? Is it a regional thing? Like what’s going on there?

Yes and yes. And I’m guessing you’re from Southern California, Will.

Oh, yes, I am in the sunny town of Temecula.

Temecula, sure. Oh, Temecula, just north of San Diego.

Wine country, hot air balloons. And you’re right to suspect that there is some history behind these differences, as often happens with language, and specifically the history of freeways in the United States and in Southern California. You know, most places in the U.S. didn’t start getting highways until 1956 under the Eisenhower administration, or interstate highways anyway.

But 16 years earlier, California opened the first freeway in the West that connected L.A. and Pasadena. It was called the Arroyo Seco Parkway, and then later the Pasadena Freeway. And here in San Diego, just south of Temecula, going west to east from the coast, you first had the Ocean Beach Freeway, and then east of that you had the Mission Valley Freeway.

And then in 1964, like elsewhere around the country, California started using numbers instead of words. So the Ocean Beach Freeway and the Mission Valley Freeway became part of Interstate 8, which stretches on into Arizona.

And here, old habits died hard and people held on to the the. And in the same way, the Montgomery Freeway, coming up from the border with Mexico, goes through San Diego and turned into the San Diego Freeway and continues north.

And now here in Southern California, we call it the five. And there are a few other places around the country that also use the. They do that in the Phoenix area and also in Buffalo, New York, which is probably influenced by Ontario, which is very near there because you’ll see that in Canada as well.

So people hang on to that V because of history in part. And then things just arise independently, right, Grant?

I mean, they do this in the UK and parts of the UK as well.

Yeah, Ireland and England, people would talk about taking the M1 to go someplace.

Mm—

Huh. That is so, because I suspected that it was a regional thing, considering that when I would bring it up to my Texas friends, they also looked at me in such bewilderment, too. It’s really cool that there is such a long history with that. That is really cool.

How do you and your boyfriend resolve this dispute?

It has yet to be resolved.

Oh, my. This is one of the reasons why I decided to reach out so we could get some information on this.

Oh, boy.

Well, if you want to laugh together about it, Saturday Night Live did some very hilarious skits called The Californians, and they poke tremendous fun.

Oh, I love that sketch.

Yeah, just watch those together, and if you can poke a little fun at yourself, Will, he will probably be dying with tears because they’re hilarious.

And they do make fun of the way Californians give directions with the freeways. So maybe that’s a way to diffuse the tension over saying The 15 or The 5.

Oh, my God.

That’s really great.

I’m glad that I now have some, you know, ammo to give an argument back to him.

Well, yeah, some information maybe.

Or maybe you just both moved back to Southern California.

What about that?

Oh, well, hey, we just visited. Took a tour on all the wines. He loves it.

Oh, great.

Great.

There you go.

All right.

Well, take care, Will. Give our best to your boyfriend.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Will.

We know that you have these little ongoing arguments about language with your significant other or your loved ones.

We would love to help you sort it out.

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