Date:  Wed, 30 Nov 1994 13:20:31 -0800

From:  Dan Alford <dalford[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S1.CSUHAYWARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: The great California freeway isogloss revisited



To bring it back to the original topic in the subject line, REAL DATA from

last night as Jay Leno was talking to Wm. Shatner: We're going to be running

a little bit late. Merv (Griffen) called -- he's stuck in traffic out on the

405 somewhere... (Shatner:) Where? On 405? (Jay:) 405 and Ventura Freeway.



Note that Jay, definitely not a SoCal native, has picked up the general use

of the 'the', but then when Shatner (also not a native, but has been in SoCal

for a while now, I'd suppose) and Jay get into a little dialog, the article

gets dropped like a proverbial hot potato. Evidently they both have stronger

ties to places that don't use the "the" -- OR, once the "the" is established,

maybe it doesn't need to be used so SLAVISHLY anymore.



I too, like Rabin, grew up with DESTINATION names for freeways in LA rather

than numbers. So really we're looking at two questions at once: since I too

was gone from LA when these changes went into effect, I'm also interested in

1) when did the destination names change to designated numbers, and 2) was

it then simply a natural extension from "you take THE Long Beach Freeway to

THE San Bernardino Freeway..." to taking THE numbers?



                            -- Moonhawk (%->)

  <"The fool on the hill sees the sun going down and>

  <the eyes in his head see the world spinning round">

                 <-- McCartney/Lennon>