Minor, tiny rant for you newcomers and road names (Houston: car rental, apartment)

[love roses]

It bugs me too. I think there should be a grace period, with gentle reminders from time to time! When I was in high school in Clear Lake (Houston), my best friend was from Omaha and she called Coke Pop. That was weird to me. But the Coke thing was weird for her. If we went to a convenience store for a drink, I'd ask her what kind of Coke she wanted, She's ask, What kind of pop. Eventually, it just grew on me. I guess the road thing bugs me more than what people call their drinks

[greystonefarm]

What do you mean...?
Pop is pop.
You mean you call all pop Coke?
What if you want root beer?

[romesq]

We'll soon be adding a little NOLA spin to the names and numbers in Austin -- closing this coming Wednesday on our new home!

In NOLA, we speak of that !#$%^&* I-10, the !#$%^&* Crescent City Connection (the birdge over the Miss. River), and the !#$%^&* Twin Spans over Lake Pontchartrain. At least I haven't heard those colorful terms applied yet in this forum to your roads!

As for names, consider Tchoupitoulas, (chop-i- TOU-las) and Melpomene (MEL-po-mane) for streets, along with surnames like Schwierjahn (SWEAR-john) and Robert (ro-BEAR) and Villemarette (ve-mar-RET). Who knows what will emerge from our mouths when we start talking about the Austin area names! FYI, New Orleans even has a street called FLOOD -- yep, it did -- and a book called "Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children" that details the history of our quirky street names. Bet Austin has one too!

Looking forward to joining you soon. We'll bring along the etouffee, the meuniere sauces, the sabayon, the courtboullion, the jambalaya, and the hurricanes (the rum ones only!)

[atxcio]

2) In Austin, when you see a street name or town name that looks unusual, you can be pretty sure that you are pronouncing it wrong. See the town of Manor? That's Main-or. See the road Manchaca Rd? That's Man-shack. Nope, you don't pronounce the "a" at all. I could be here 20 years and I'll still be getting things wrong.

ooh.. here are a few more:

- Burnet Rd (pronounced burn-it)
- Gaudalupe (pronounced Gwada-loop)
- Bexar (pronounched bear or behr -- county where San Antonio is)

[gigi927]

Originally Posted by austin-steve

I don't know why it bugs me, but it does. Here in Austin, we don't say "THE 620" or "THE 360", or "THE 2222", etc.

It's simply ...
360
620
2222
Mopac
I-35, etc.

"Take Mopac to 360 and head south to 2222", for example.

Does it bug anyone else or am I just weird and picky? I don't like our Austin vernacular being altered by newcomers. I feel Austin slipping away when there is too much influence and change brought in from other places?

I don't think people are trying to alter the vernacular. I don't think people are trying to change Austin. People bring with them their cultural idiosyncracies from wherever they're moving from. As previous posters have stated, both CA and Chicago drivers (I've lived in both) refer to highways as THE road. If you've referred to highways like that most of your life it's a tough habit to change.

If the worst thing people do when they move here is call Mopac THE Mopac, Austin doesn't have much to worry about from newcomers.

[TERRIE]

call me crazy, but as i'm reading this i'm asking myself..." i thought austin was all about different cultures and personalities mixing it up in the melting pot"...hmm, i realize it's just a pet peeve, but if it really bothers people so much that they write about it, that concerns me.

[Daisey31]

I would have to say that if that is the worst conflict we have to deal with, we are doing OK.

[Daisey31]

Y'all haven't lived until you have tried to speak Hawaiian St names. The funniest one is the Likelike Hwy. No, it is NOT Like Like, it is Leaky Leaky...LOL
Places evolve. It is the nature of our world. In Hawaii we use 'the' in front of our 3 'massive' freeway system names. Sorry, seeing as how I am 43, I will try not to annoy y'all with my life long venacular.
Can I still say 'all pau' when I am finished with something??

[austin-steve]

I started wondering, regional differences and vernacular aside, what would the proper use of English dictate. Just for fun I asked the question at answerbag.com and here are some of the answers ...

Well, since "the" is just a demonstrative adjective you can add it to anything if you want to. Personally, I'd say go with whatever sounds right. To me, using your example, "Take 200 east to the Ryan Express and head south," sounds right.

and

If you refer to a turnpike, then you would use 'the' before the turnpike - i.e. THE Ohio Turnpike. If you referred to the highway that IS that turnpike, you would not - i.e. Highway 80.

and this

If it is the actual name of the street in question, it is not proper to use "the". If it is a term used to identify it that is NOT the name, it is fine to use.

[tashina]

Originally Posted by TERRIE

call me crazy, but as i'm reading this i'm asking myself..." i thought austin was all about different cultures and personalities mixing it up in the melting pot"...hmm, i realize it's just a pet peeve, but if it really bothers people so much that they write about it, that concerns me.

Well, I don't know about others, but I'm just hanging out on the weekend making conversation. I like to write about things - it doesn't mean I'm really bothered by it.

San Diego street names can be just as hard to learn (like Jamacha Rd - Ham-a-shaw)- it's just that as a native I grew up knowing them. New things are a little harder to learn at 40.

Thanks to the poster atxcio who has saved me future embarrassment when pronouncing Bexar which I thought was Bex-are.

Here's a couple more for Austin newbie like me:

1) Mueller - the name of a new community that's hot as a New Urban Development here. You hear the name in the news a lot. Pronounced Miller.
2) Pedernales St (pronounced PERD-en-allis)
3) Koenig (KAY-nig) Lane