# Why do Northern Californians get upset about "the 405"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 28, 2017, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308 "2017-07-28T05:40:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/21 "2017-07-28T17:05:31Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > This. When I moved there in the late 80s, I couldn’t believe how much hate there was for the Dodgers. In LA, we never even talked about the Giants. In the Bay Area, it’s their biggest rivalry. Don’t even ask me about take out containers. Well, I’m a SoCalian and I hate the Dodgers…I’m an Angels fan :). But the Giants are their biggest rivals going back to their NYC days. One of the most memorable and horrifying moment in Dodger history was Juan Marichal hitting Johnny Roseboro over the head with his bat. The hatred is legendary. Remember the unfortunate Giant fan almost killed by two thugs in Chavez Ravine parking lot? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/22 "2017-07-28T17:06:36Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > It doesn’t fly in Washington, D.C. either, but you wouldn’t know it from watching TV shows. Apparently it never occurs to L.A. based scriptwriters that not everyone in the nation shares their peculiar speech. Is it our fault that the rest of America gets it wrong? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/23 "2017-07-28T17:07:47Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > It doesn’t fly in Washington, D.C. either, but you wouldn’t know it from watching TV shows. Apparently it never occurs to L.A. based scriptwriters that not everyone in the nation shares their peculiar speech. [SoCalization](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoCalization) I generally use the SiriusXM traffic channel before I get underway, and I can always tell when they hire someone from out of town to do the Detroit traffic report. If you call I-94 “The 94” we know you ain’t from 'round these parts. and don’t get me started on titling a TV show _Detroit 1-8-7._ I admit that “Detroit 750.316” doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but they could have come up with a better title. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/24 "2017-07-28T17:10:50Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Is it our fault that the rest of America gets it wrong? 😉 As I’ve mentioned before, y’all are ruining Arizona. Our newscaster speak some weird hybrid, saying things like “Traffic on the I-10”, mixing the definite article usage of SoCal with the “I-10/Interstate 10” usage the rest of the country uses. I blame all the LA folk that moved here. Go home, and take your definite article with you! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/25 "2017-07-28T17:11:14Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Interestingly, this sort of [thing] came up on Jeopardy yesterday. Alex was reading the answer: [QUOTE=Alex Trebek] The McClure Tunnel in Santa Monica marks the western terminus of the 10 freeway, which transitions to this highway, the PCH. [/quote] By the way, this particular junction described by Trebek is what the worlds sees when it logs in to Microsoft 365 Online. Was that part of the clue he gave? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/26 "2017-07-28T17:15:17Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I blame all the LA folk that moved here. Go home, and take your definite article with you! 🙂 You can start blaming the LA folk after you stop doing what you do to the San Diego folk every summer. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/27 "2017-07-28T17:20:41Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > IMO, it’s a way for Bay Area folks to try and feel superior to SoCal folks. It’s ridiculous, but the OP is right, they sure do get testy about it. > > How about the Bloody Bayshore? Last century I spent decades in Northern California and never witnessed — not even once — anyone get upset by theSoCal “the.” It might have seemed quaint enough to get a comment — is that what “upset” means? Or is this alleged irritation a 21st-century development? > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > ISTM that people in NorCal spend a lot of time being offended by people in SoCal. When I was in my native Southern California, nobody paid any attention to NorCal at all. So it’s _not_ true that when a LA’er refers to “The City” he means the City high on a hill by the bay? :o ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/28 "2017-07-28T17:30:48Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > [SoCalization](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoCalization) The problem with this article is that it doesn’t point out that the parts of Southern California–especially L.A.–which appear in media are very limited to just certain areas. So it actually should be called “WestLA-ization.” People in other parts of L.A. are just as annoyed by this phenomenon as people in other parts of the country. Just about every snarky thing Woody Allen has said about L.A. in his movies applies to only a very small aspect of this huge city. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/29 "2017-07-28T17:35:44Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > By the way, this particular junction described by Trebek is what the worlds sees when it logs in to Microsoft 365 Online. Was that part of the clue he gave? Nope. I got the question wording off J-archive, and I think they are exact. Jibes with my memory, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/30 "2017-07-28T17:51:03Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > So it’s _not_ true that when a LA’er refers to “The City” he means the City high on a hill by the bay? :o Native Southern Californian, born in Lakewood (L.A. County), lived 11 years in San Diego, 11 years in the Antelope Valley (Northern L.A. County), and 17 years in the City of L.A. I don’t recall ever hearing anyone referring to _any_ city as ‘The City’. (Though when I lived in the AV, south of the mountains – and especially L.A. – were commonly called ‘Down Below’.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/31 "2017-07-28T18:21:54Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > ISTM that people in NorCal spend a lot of time being offended by people in SoCal. More or less. We (I’m a NorCal guy) don’t mind the SoCalers so much as long as they stay in SoCal. But when they come up here, what with their “the 101” lingo and all, we know who they are and don’t want them here. We don’t want to turn into them. 🙂 And we all pretty much know how it started. Freeways around LA were historically referred to by name: The Santa Monica Freeway, etc. Shifting over to numbers, they kept the “The”. We have “The Bayshore” freeway (aka, 101), but that’s about it. Maybe “The Nimitz”, but mostly just numbers. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/32 "2017-07-28T18:25:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Last century I spent decades in Northern California and never witnessed — not even once — anyone get upset by theSoCal “the.” It might have seemed quaint enough to get a comment — is that what “upset” means? Or is this alleged irritation a 21st-century development? There’s a long running column “Mr. Roadshow” in the San Jose Merc for discussion of traffic issues. About once a year, he’ll devote an entire column to people’s gripes about hearing “The” in front of freeway names. It’s one of those things that people like to pretend to be upset about. They don’t hate the terminology, they just hate the people who use it. 🙂 I lived in and around Boston for many years, and we used to hate the New Yorkers coming up and telling us how much better a city New York was, and blah blah fucking blah. Same thing. You see it everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/33 "2017-07-28T18:42:24Z")
Here in South Dakota, we just refer to the interstates as ‘The Interstate’. If you need more specificity, we say ‘I-90’ or ‘I-29’ (we only have the two and I-29 only runs down the eastern part of the state). Other highways are usually referred to as ‘Highway (number)’ or just ‘(number)’. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/34 "2017-07-28T18:44:27Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > Huh. So I guess my is in for a surprise if she does end up moving to the Bay Area like she plans, as we Ontarians talk about “the 401” all the time. The custom in Ontario seems to be to put the road type (like “highway” or “county road”) in front of the number, at least on first occurrence, so there is no definite article for non-freeways: “Take Highway 21 north to county road 65, then follow 65 east to …”. But the definite article is always used for the freeways which are all three-digit numbers beginning with “4”: “the 401”, “the 407”, etc. It strikes me as natural I suppose because I hear it so much, but it also makes sense because the major freeways are so familiar that their designations seem more like names than numbers, so you’d use the definite article in the same sense as you would say “take the Gardiner Expressway”. So if I was in SoCal and heard someone talk about “the 405” I’d feel like I was at home! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/35 "2017-07-28T18:54:42Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Oh yes there is, and [this is where](http://georgerothert.com/tag/northern-california/). > > Center divider in the middle of State Route 99, a few miles north of Fresno, is the dividing line between southern and northern California. At this point, there are two adjacent trees planted there: A palm tree (marking Southern California) and some kind of pine for fir tree (marking Northern California). > > This is supposed to symbolically represent the geographic center of the state. Actually, AIUI, that geographic center is many miles to the east of this point, up in the Sierras somewhere. But the marker on the highway (the two trees) is placed at the corresponding latitude. Wiki disagrees: > **[Northern California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_California)** > > Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's 58 counties. Its main population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area (anchored by the cities of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland), the Greater Sacramento area (anchored by the state capital Sacramento), the Redding, California, area south of the Cascade Range, and the Metro The... But yes, that is more or less the Geographical center. But there is also a political center, a biological center (Pt Conception divides North from South coastal biomes) and a population center. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/36 "2017-07-28T18:58:57Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Well, I’m a SoCalian and I hate the Dodgers…I’m an Angels fan :). Well, yeah, but that’s normal. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/37 "2017-07-28T19:01:51Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > So it’s _not_ true that when a LA’er refers to “The City” he means the City high on a hill by the bay? :o Nope, that’s only a Frisco thing. 😛 I lived in San Jose, so when people said “We’re going up to the City.” the response was always : “But you’re _in_ The City?” (San Jose being much larger than SF). ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/38 "2017-07-28T19:02:16Z")
Background: I grew up in LA, went to college and grad school in San Diego and have lived in Santa Barbara for the last 27 years. As the saying goes, there is a huge war between Southern California and Northern California but only the people in Northern California know about it. And it’s true. I didn’t have the faintest idea about the scope of the perceived rivalry until I went to college at UCSD and lived in a dorm full of people mostly from throughout the State. They had tons of SoCal jokes and snarky comments and we were all like “Um, I don’t know. Your bridges are cool.” It’s some kind of weird compensation for an unnecessary inferiority complex as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/39 "2017-07-28T19:03:06Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > The problem with this article is that it doesn’t point out that the parts of Southern California–especially L.A.–which appear in media are very limited to just certain areas. > > So it actually should be called “WestLA-ization.” People in other parts of L.A. are just as annoyed by this phenomenon as people in other parts of the country. Just about every snarky thing Woody Allen has said about L.A. in his movies applies to only a very small aspect of this huge city. And see- why on earth would you be annoyed by a little definite article? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308/40 "2017-07-28T19:05:48Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > Don’t bring any of that “the” crap when talking about freeways to Washington. A few years ago a commercial for a local company referred the freeway exit to take as exit 142 of the 5 freeway. The company was blasted by the locals and the media. They claimed it was the Los Angeles based advertising company they hired. Again- why on earth would you be annoyed by a little definite article? “Blasted”?? :eek: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-northern-californians-get-upset-about-the-405/792308.md?page=3)