[geocrasher]

Completely random question: Are you from California? The reason I ask is that you said "The 5".

Edit: To those who said that's a SoCal thing: I Know. I got razzed endlessly when I moved to Reno from the Palm Springs area for saying "The 395, The 80", which are the only two freeways in the region lol.

[isoskeles]

I lived in Florida for a long time, and the only people I remember who didn’t say “The 95” etc. were news anchors. So I always take these discussions with a grain of salt, as I do not think CA is the only place where people talk like this, and I also don’t even believe there are any regional norms about it most of the time. I assume people just repeat something they read in an article about this phenomenon.

But I would be interested to see something well-researched on the topic.

[djrogers]

No need for research, anyone who moved from Southern California to Northern California can tell you about this very distinct difference in speech patterns.

[echelon]

This is something that really grinds my gears with the movie "Baby Driver".

Edgar Wright went to incredible trouble to set the film in Atlanta. It features Atlanta landmarks, culture, food, and dialect. It feels quintessentially Atlantan.

Despite that effort, they're constantly referring to highways and interstates with the definite article. "The 75", "the 85", "The Buford Highway". We don't do that here, and it sounds a bit like nails on a chalkboard.

It's hard to fault the film for this trivial issue, but it is amusing.

[filmgirlcw]

Totally! It’s 85 and 75 and 316!

What bothered me more was how one chase scene (I can’t remember which one) went in like the wrong direction. I love the film, but seeing them get so many details about Atlanta almost right and then get location/direction stuff wrong was pretty funny for someone born and raised in Atlanta. I imagine it’s how LA people must feel all the time!

[PopAlongKid]

That would be specifically a SoCal (southern California) linguistic register. Many Californians would simply refer to I-5 (U.S. Interstate Highway 5)

[xvedejas]

Sacramento too, I think (and maybe other parts of the central valley)

[bcherny]

Yup! California, lived in both NorCal and SoCal.

[geocrasher]

Your language gives you away lol. But as I edited my comment, it gave me away too. "The $freewaynumber" is almost exclusively as SoCal thing.

[bcherny]

Interesting.. Could make for a cool Chrome extension, to analyze text on a page and show tooltips about the person that wrote it (I bet you can infer more than just where they're from!)

[tjr225]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz...

[geocrasher]

Thanks for posting that! I was actually thinking about that quiz my aked the question but it's been several years since I've even seen it in didn't bother searching for it lol.

[lostlogin]

This gets creepy fast, but adtech would like it and are deep down that hole already.

[sizzzzlerz]

It would have to be southern Cal. We here in northern cal refer to highways as "5" or "101".