How to Spot a So Cal Transplant

I suppose this is.. um hella directed at me?

Yep.

Okay well here is what I noticed when I first go up here: In So Cal they (see I no longer even identify myself with the residents of LaLa land) call freeways "the 101" or "the 405"; here, we just say "101" or "80".

Its a sure tell if someone uses a definite article in front of a freeway's number that they are fresh off the I-5.

ahh! "the I-5" huh? i guess u just outed yourself. so y do u so-cal-ers do that?

To give you hippies a sense of superiority?

eww! and da smog-stained claws come out!

Just kidding, of course, FlowerGirl (with that screen name I'm sure you get that hippy crack a lot). I have a theory about why people from LA use the definite article in front of freeway numbers. Want to hear it?

enlighten me, your owlness

Here's what I think it is. So Cal is a total car culture. I mean you can be on the 101 at 3 am and run into bumper to bumper traffic. I mean you'll just look out your car window at the neighboring care and they will stare back at you like "What the heck is this all about? IT'S THREE AM!"

You spend so much time on the freeways and they have such an effect on your life that you start to speak about them with a certain deference-- as if they are fickle Gods and Godesses that can trample you underfoot if you don't watch out.

wow! dat is quite a theory. but if dat is how they feel about freeways in so cal, how do we feel about them here? what does our lack of definite article say?

I'm not as sure about what it says about Nor Cal-ers, but I have slightly less well developed theory about that as well.

yes...

Do you want to hear it?

yeah you big tease. lay it on me already.

Okay, here it is. Up here everything is looser and less formal, so we don't use the definite article with our freeways because we don't really feel any sense of deference to anything. A left over from our radical hippy history. That's also why we are more likely to call freeways by their names rather than their numbers as well. It's like when you here a student call his professor "Jim" or "Bob."

hmmmm? interesting...

Kind of lame, huh?

it could use some work

but i definetely like part 1 of your theory

any way Owl, i'm out. my movie is coming on and moma flower is waitin

Good night!

Here's another way to know when some one is new in town. They don't know what Pride Week is.

I call it "the 101." I thought that was what you were supposed to do in California...?

I also refer to the 1 as "the 1," but 80 is 80, 280 is 280, 880 is 880...you get the idea. Is that really a NorCal/SoCal thing?