The Cormanus Chronicles

[Gone in 60]

Interesting conversations about use of the English language. In my travels, when I talk about our freeways, it's common for Californians to put the word "the" in front of our highway numbers. So, we'd say "I'll take the 60 to the 57 to the 91 to get home." Enough people ask me why we do that that I finally admitted that I had no idea, so I did some digging.

When the freeways were conceived and built, they had state or federal issue route numbers, but they were also given names, which were emphasized much more than the number. The San Gabriel Freeway, The Pomona Freeway, The San Diego Freeway, etc. Those names are still there, but in the interest of brevity, they have largely been dropped, and we use the numbers in conversation. But we never lost the "The". We also lost some of the names for interchanges and sections of freeways that are recognizable.

Thinking back to the days of radio traffic reports, the reporters would use the names, so you'd hear "Traffic is backing up along the Pomona Freeway to the Kellog Interchange, and The Santa Monica Freeway is clear until you hit The Downtown Slot. If you're on the Long Beach Freeway, you'll hit traffic at the East L.A. Interchange".

I think the loss of the names and adoption of the numbers is largely due to the utilization of GPS navigation, first built into cars and now on our phones. Digital devices follow route numbers, not names. They tell us what lane to be in to transition from the 5 to the 710, but they don't tell us more than that. I think if Siri spent any more time interrupting my music using the long names of the highways and interchanges, I might throw my phone out the window, so maybe that's a good thing. Even if we lost some of the fun radio reports... "It's crunchy through the Kellog right now..."

[suhawk305]

Continuing on the theme of misused English. Myself and some buddies do a Sunday Breakfast run and try and find a café for a "Full Irish". (Fried Breakfast). We run out every Sunday, 52 weeks a year (unless the weather is exceptionally bad, it usually takes snow or bad ice to stop us). I go about 12 times a year, my waistline won't survive 52 Full Irish Breakfasts!

At one stop the menu included "Free Range Sausages". Myself and my retired school teacher buddy looked up at each other and simultaneously laughed our heads off. We couldn't resist asking the waitress if the sausages got free rein of the car park and adjoining field outside. That went straight over her head so we gave it up :-)

I can definitely see how eating a weekly Full Irish Breakfast often can do a number on your waistline. I had to adjust my belt out a notch after a week in Ireland. BTW, what’s up with this “Blood Pudding” item included in breakfast there?

[Cormanus]

Gone, Australian English would go the same way as California. We tend to talk about names highways rather than numbers which are more for government, mappers and GPS instructions. "Take the Gateway Motorway north until it joins the Bruce Highway, then take the first exit on to Dohles Rocks Road ..." etc. Even if we do use numbers we'd precede them with the definite article.