# Tiny, unimportant things that folks get all bothered about **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 22, 2022, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271 "2022-04-22T19:24:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/181 "2022-05-05T19:56:54Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The only issue with them, as far as I am concerned, is ordering food for the gang on game night. Do they make special demands or get whiney if they don’t like any of the food provided? Because if not, then it shouldn’t be a concern of yours. I don’t mean that in a snotty way; I assume you just mean you want to include them. But if they’re like me, they either bring what they like or fill up before the game. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/182 "2022-05-05T20:09:23Z")
Yes, we want to include them, and no, they rarely get whiny. They are fairly good about it. I just like to be a good host and while we are all eating pizza, if one won’t eat cheese and the other wont eat tomato sauce, it gets difficult. Fortunately, the two are in different groups. We can get a different sauce on one pizza, but… ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/183 "2022-05-06T03:12:53Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > And the river that runs up through half the western side of the state isn’t the “WILL-uh-mette” either, it’s “Will-AM-ette” and don’t you forget it! ; As an Oregonian once told me, “Willamette rhymes with ‘damn it’!” ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/184 "2022-05-06T03:25:51Z")
I was told, "It’s Will-AM-ette, Dammit! ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/185 "2022-05-06T12:28:25Z")
Try telling that to smug, self-important residents who think SF is center of universe where everything was invented ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/186 "2022-05-06T14:35:03Z")
When San Francisco was generally referred to as The City, it really was the only city until you got to Los Angeles. San Jose was an agricultural center of some 30,000 maybe 50,000 souls. So was Sacramento. Even the post WWII boom did not change the ratios much for a long, time and when it did, outlying towns were still just suburban sprawls with old decaying cores. If you wanted to see a first class play, shop at fashionable clothing stores, eat foreign food that wasn’t Chinese take out or Italian-American, visit excellent museums or stay in an elegant hotel, you went to The City. That was where all that stuff was. You dressed up to go there. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/187 "2022-05-06T14:36:22Z")
I think most cities that aren’t terribly close to a comparable or larger city are referred to as “the city”. No? ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/188 "2022-05-06T14:41:18Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > referred to as “the city”. True, but San Francisco is “The City”. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/189 "2022-05-06T14:53:58Z")
A new twist on this one: using or not using the word “the” before “East Village” and “West Village.” > **[Insufferable NY transplants axing ‘the’ from West & East Villages](https://nypost.com/2022/05/05/annoying-ny-transplants-axe-the-from-west-east-villages/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow)** > > “I heard my teenage daughter say just East Village and I couldn’t believe it, I said ‘uh, did you forget the T-H-E?’” one New Yorker told The Post.   ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/190 "2022-05-06T15:01:04Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > When San Francisco was generally referred to as The City, it really was the only city until you got to Los Angeles. Keep in mind San Francisco was really the only “City” in California during it’s formative years. Los Angeles was pretty much a small backwater for the first 50 or so years that California existed (population in 1890: LA - 50K, SF - 300K). It was not until around the 1920s when the railroads and real estate booms got going that LA surpassed SF in population. I suspect the term “The City” for SF just sort of stuck, and certainly it still sticks for northern CA, even tho San Jose, 35 miles south, is larger by population now. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/191 "2022-05-07T18:44:39Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > A new twist on this one: using or not using the word “the” before “East Village” and “West Village.” Those are obviously Russian spies. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/192 "2022-05-13T19:34:46Z")
> [@Tj54](#): > > “We’re going to the CITY!”, “I live in the CITY”, “My brother lives in the CITY!” Used to be fairly widespread, even in allusion to places that werw barely cities yet in any practical sense. I’ve seen a photo of an 1870s L.A. hotel guestbook where one of the guests wrote their address as just “City”, meaning they lived in L.A. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/193 "2022-05-13T19:57:13Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > On the west coast only Southern California says “the”, I think it’s because we originally referred to the freeways by names, like the San Diego Freeway or the Golden State Freeway. When we started referring to them by their interstate numbers instead, the “the” was retained. And the names were often next to meaningless anyway. I-405 used to be called the San Diego Freeway, but it only reaches it by merging with I-5. Like all three-digit interstates, it’s really just a bypass road. If they wanted to give it a name they should have called it the West Side Beltway or something. I was many years old before I learned that Seattle also has an I-405. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/194 "2022-05-13T20:07:41Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I was many years old before I learned that Seattle also has an I-405. [As does Portland, OR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_405). I was surprised that San Fransisco didn’t, which caused me to look at a map and I see I-5 routes to Sacramento instead. And they didn’t do a bypass for Sacramento, rather pushed it right through the heart of the city. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/195 "2022-05-13T20:32:56Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I was many years old before I learned that Seattle also has an I-405. The three-digit interstate numbers are local, and may get re-used from one region to another. For example, there is a fairly significant connector, I-580, connecting I-5 in the San Joaquin Valley to I-80 in the Bay Area. It was later extended along existing parts of I-80 and SR-17 to San Rafael in the North Bay area. BUT there is also another I-580 in Nevada, connecting Reno to Carson City. ETA: What the San Francisco Bay Area does have, though, is a whole bunch of I-x80 local interstates: 280, 380, 580, 680, 880, and 980. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/196 "2022-05-13T20:41:30Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > ETA: What the San Francisco Bay Area does have, though, is a whole bunch of I-x80 local interstates: 280, 380, 580, 680, 780, 880, and 980. And there was almost a [I-480 in San Francisco](https://www.aaroads.com/guides/i-480-ca/) - the Embarcadero Freeway, which was damaged by the 1989 earthquake, and eventually removed. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/197 "2022-05-13T20:45:42Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > And there was almost a [I-480 in San Francisco](https://www.aaroads.com/guides/i-480-ca/) - the Embarcadero Freeway, which was damaged by the 1989 earthquake, and eventually removed. Apparently, it was a bit premature calling that I-480. It was a State Route, SR-480, that was intended to be completed and become I-480 but that never happened. Your link mentions that it actually had I-480 signage, but I think that was jumping the gun. The article also points out that it was not the Loma Prieta damage that really killed it – that was already in the works before that. It says the damage was rather minor, but it put the final kibosh on the project. The East Bayshore freeway really took the worst hit. (I don’t recall if it was still called SR-17 at the time, but I think it was already called I-880.) Parts of the upper deck collapsed onto the lower deck, squishing flat several cars and all therein. ETA: P.S.: I corrected my earlier post, which you quoted: There is no I-780 there. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/198 "2022-05-13T20:50:02Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Complaining about Wal Mart. > … > [(paraphrasing) just don’t go there if you don’t like Walmart] > … Similarly, it doesn’t matter to me if I can mute threads or ignore other members. Regarding the former I prefer just scrolling past anything I don’t want to read. Maybe I’ll change my mind next time. And as to the latter, my concern is that if I ignore someone then their missing posts in a thread will make it less clear. I can’t think of anyone that I’d want to ignore anyway, off the top of my head. As far as Walmart goes, I hate to admit it, but they’ve been upgrading their game in recent years. The stores seem a lot cleaner and better organized than they used to be, and compared to the local Albertson’s or Fred Meyer it’s much easier to get help if you need it. It seems like there are always several employees working just in the grocery aisles alone, either stocking shelves or pulling pickup and delevery orders, so they’re available. Their app is better, and so is their self-checkout. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/199 "2022-05-13T21:01:52Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Their app is better, and so is their self-checkout. I’m quite fond of their Scan and Go myself, but have yet to figure out how to deal with it with produce that needs weighing. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271/200 "2022-05-13T22:22:06Z")
In the Bogart version of _The Maltese Falcon_, Sam Spade addresses an envelope he’s mailing to himself with the street address (or maybe it was a PO box) and “City.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-unimportant-things-that-folks-get-all-bothered-about/963271.md?page=11)