Date:  Thu, 1 Dec 1994 11:20:07 -0800

From:  Judith Rascoe <boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US>

Subject: Re: "the" 101



Joan Livingston-Webber's comment that those 'grand highways' of California

accrued "the" almost persuaded me -- until I thought of one of the grandest:

5, the big north-south highway from Sacramento to LA. I have _never_ heard

anybody say "that the 5 ...". But that leads to the reflection that the use

of the definite article always seems associated with the concept of a

freeway in an urban area -- the freeway as a visible entity with its

overpasses and offramps that turn it into ... a definite article, so to

speak.