(no subject)

[arethinn]

Okay, nomenclature investigation time.

[Poll #1160620]

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

When I lived there (and still today), I use CA in print, and in both print and speech have been known to use SoCal and NoCal.

Of course, I'm forever marked as having been an Angelino for a few years, because I also still use the term "surface streets" (as in not freeways), which is to my knowledge a term only used in and only useful in the horror that is LA.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

I say SoCal and NorCal in certain contexts too, but that wasn't the question. In another place, where someone outside the US said "Cali", I remarked that it was a funny thing that I knew no Californians who referred to it as such. Of course one of them came out of the woodwork to disprove me. :P But I was curious who actually said it or wrote it, and where they were from (i.e., was I basically right, it's an outsider term, or am I completely off base).

My father uses the term "surface streets". He's from Ohio and moved to the Bay area in the 1950s. I picked it up from him, so I use it in exactly the manner you've described.

[talonstrike.livejournal.com]

Yes. Outsiders. See also "Frisco" and "San Fran".

I was born and raised in the south bay, and I too use the term "surface streets". Like you, I picked it up from my father, who was born in Israel but moved to the Bay Area before age 10 and thus did most of his growing up in Sunnyvale.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

See also "Frisco" and "San Fran".

Which I tactfully refrained from giving a lecture about in the example under consideration, heheh.

[ninth-myth.livejournal.com]

what about sacrademento? used by complete outsiders in reference to a rp which skipped through a california unlikely to even vaguely resemble reality apart from the forest.

[feedle.livejournal.com]

We used to call it "Suckramento" down in Bakersfield.

What is it with Central Valley cities always being "down" on the other Central Valley cities? Common saying in Bakersfield was "yeah, today kind-of sucked, but it could have only been worse in Fresno." Bakersfield's reputation (somewhat deserved) of being a 24-hour Hee Haw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hee_Haw) episode in the northern parts of the Valley also stands out.

Jeez, people: the whole Central Valley from Redding to Tejon Pass is a dusty agricultural shithole, only made tolerable by the fact you're a little over an hour's drive to either the beauty of the Sierras or the cool breezes of the Pacific Ocean.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Everyone looks down on Fresno.

When I was at university in Sacramento (oh! the irony!) there was a poster on the wall in one of my photography classes, "so-and-so's Compendium of Photographic Truths."

One of them was "A good photograph cannot be made in Fresno."

(I've only been there once, but that was enough.)

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Oh, I say Sacrademento. But that's like "Berzerkeley", a nickname said specifically to be silly, not just a general shorthand. If I just want to refer to the place without being silly, I say "Sacramento" or in text will often type "Sacto".

Also, Sacratomato, which is actually the name of a house-brand tomato bisque available at a local grocery chain. :)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

My father uses the term "surface streets". He's from Ohio and moved to the Bay area in the 1950s. I picked it up from him, so I use it in exactly the manner you've described.

Weird, I have lived all over the US (DC, MO, WI, CA, & OR) and LA was the first place I heard that term and the only one where I noticed it in use.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

See talonstrike's comment. It's possible he didn't import it to the Bay area, but rather picked it up here. My father was older than his when he came here, but not by that much, by the sounds of things.

The Bay area is not quite as epic in terms of freeways, but still the distinction is quite meaningful since your daily life is likely to include both.

We're also the only place that doesn't preface our freeway numbers with the definite article, as far as I've experienced. It's like we think of them as people and their numbers are names. Oddly enough, where the local habit is to use "the", I have no problem using it too, and in fact it sounds weird to my ears if I don't. I can't bring myself to say "the 101" (or 1, 5, 50, 80, 85, 87, 99, 280, 237, 580, 680, or 880!), but you'd never hear me saying just naked "401" (a freeway in Ontario) without its "the".

[feedle.livejournal.com]

The use of the definite article is, if I recall correctly, a SoCal vs. NoCal thing.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

In CA it is, but it seems that everywhere else I've been they use definite articles too (Ontario, for instance, and when I was driving across the US people kept referring to "the 80"). "Everywhere" is probably a sweeping generalization and I'm just not remembering the exceptions, but it seems that Northern Californians are quite unusual in this respect.

[feedle.livejournal.com]

I think the term "surface streets" might be a generational thing.

I've heard the previous generation of my family use it regardless of whether they were from the Californian (mom's) side of the family or the Bostonian (dad's) side.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

That's possible. I suppose if you were there watching the freeways being built...

[dreamfall.livejournal.com]

Also: You say "The" 91, "The" 5, "The" 405 instead of route 91, I-5, I-405, etc. It's like having ANGELINO tattooed on your forehead innit?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Yep. When I arrived there, I said "I-5", by the time I left (and still), I say "the 5".

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

*scratches head* You mean you don't? Just about everywhere else I've ever been, people seem to call the freeways by "the". I thought us northern Californians were, if not unique, then at least quite odd that we didn't do so.