On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 23:29, Jim Ellwanger <[email protected]> wrote: > It's not a grammatical problem at all. It's a local dialect issue: > the "the (route number)" construction is peculiar to the southern > California dialect. It's not just an East Coast thing; everywhere in > the U.S. outside southern California, the locals would say "295" or > "I-295" or "the (name of road)," depending on what the local custom > is, and it may differ in certain contexts. (Yes, "the (name of > road)," but not "the (route number).")
All the local variations make it fun to play "spot the out-of-town traffic reporter." Austin's dialect is pretty easy to get wrong unless you're aware of it -- all of the major highways have both names and numbers but some are referred to only by name and some only by number, there are very few streets where the direction at the start of the name or the type at the end are optional (either everyone uses it or nobody does, pretty much,) and my personal favorite, an arterial street with a fraction in its name. People can't seem to agree on whether it's "38th 1/2 St", "38 1/2th St" or "38 1/2 St" (I prefer the first one, because it keeps with using ordinal numbers without making me twist my tongue around "halfth"), but seeing it the first time seems to throw most people. -- David J. Lynch [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
