"The 101"

[Barnhart]

jparish at SIUE.EDU,Net writes:
> To San Franciscans, there was always something ludicrous about the way
> the characters on the cop show "Nash Bridges," which was set here,
> talked about "the 101" and "the 280," a gaffe equivalent to referring
> to the city as Frisco. What would you call the geographical equivalent
> of an anachronism -- an atopism?

For that matter, the usage did not spread south to San Diego until
relatively recently. In my youth there - from the late '60s to the
mid-'70s
- we referred to "8" and "5", not "the 8" or "the 5". A few years ago,
when I first heard this described as a Southern California usage, I
called my brother and father, who still live there; they reported having
heard it on the radio, but not in person. The last time I visited,
though,
last December, it had become entrenched. (The radio source, I believe,
was KNX, which is Los Angeles-based but which has an unusually
powerful transmitter; it can be clearly received in San Diego.)

I, too, have heard this precise formula used only on the radio.
However, most of Route 9 in the Hudson Valley is two lanes between
Poughkeepsie and Albany.  One short section is four lanes wide in the
vicinity of Rhinebeck.  Locals there have been known to refer to that
section as "the 4 lane."  Is this something different because it is not
referred to as "the 9"?  I remember when visiting Nova Scotia that the
locals differentiated between dirt roads and "the pavement."

Regards,
David

barnhart at highlands.com