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..."