There are two major freeways in west L.A., where I grew up: the 10 and the 405. Up here in the Bay Area, I'm come into frequent contact with 680, 880, 101, and 237. Of course, people in Southern California also experience the joys of the 101.
My point being? Well, if you're from down south, the second sentence of the previous paragraph just doesn't sound right. And if you're from this area, it's the first sentence that doesn't scan. It's the the. Ask for directions in Southern California and you'll hear "Take the 10 to the 405 north..." Similar directions given up here will sound like "Take 680 to 880 north..." So why to northerners drop the the? Or why do southerners add it? I haven't the foggiest idea. I wish I knew, though.
The thing is, I do the same thing. If I talk about soCal freeways, I automatically use the the form. Even when I'm up here, and referring to freeways down there, I just can't avoid using the the. But it takes an act of will to say "the 680." And I'd say "the 101" if I was referring to a southern stretch of it, and just "101" if I was talking about the northerly part that I usually deal with.
So what could have caused this? Is there a spot, somewhere south of here and north of there, where if you're one foot, one inch to the south you'll say "the 5," while your companion standing one foot north of you says "5"? Is it just in these two metropolitan areas? I suppose I could do research, but that's a job for scholars. Hell, maybe it's already been done; I know I'm by far the first person to notice and comment on this.
I don't think that one way is better than another. Yes, I know that's quite egalitarian of me, but because I swing both ways on this issue I won't presume to judge. I can be quite like Solomon at times.
And can anyone remember the formal names of these freeways? I know 680 is the Sinclair Highway, or Freeway, or whatever, and the 10 is, as I recall, the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. Which is very portentous, indeed. But what is 880? No idea. It's not like anyone uses the names, anyway. The only one that I know is the name of Highway 1, which everyone who's anyone refers to as PCH. You don't even spell it out (Pacific Coast Highway), and only tourists call it "Highway 1."
Maybe it's that the farther north you go, the more words you use to describe a freeway. So I imagine that in Seattle they say things like "Go north on the multi-lane paved transportation conduit referred to by the numerical value of 18..." Which would make everyone in Seattle sound like pod people. Which they are.
So, what would someone even farther north say? How do Canadians refer to their freeways? HA! Trick question! Being a tyrannical republic, nothing in Canada is called "free." No, they have things like "The Glorious People's Democratic Roadway Number Twenty Three."
So, is there a point to all of this? No, not really. It's just interesting.
Well, there is a point, but it's just the usual one: Canadians hate freedom, so
Keep Watching the Borders!