Regional Dialect

Today I had to have a meeting with some turd who was trying to sell me stuff. Nothing too out of the ordinary, some times I even get a free lunch out of these things. Not today. I like to be wined and dined. I want the salesman to make me feel like a lady. Or a dude, who’s getting free shit. This dude did none of that. For the better part of an hour, he just rambled, on and on, about his crappy life, and his crappier products. A total waste of my time. As he chatted away with a co-worker of mine about when he lived in chicago (details I was just dying to hear about), the regional dialect card came in to play, and it sparked my interest. As he was talking about the Chicago highway system, he refferred to his usual route to the office as, the 55. Why is this? Why do folks refer to highways as proper nouns, and not just roads? Around these parts we call Interstate 71, just plain 71, or even I-71. What makes people in other parts of the country refer to all their highways as “the” like it’s a big event, or some huge deal? We say, “take 71 north” they say, “take the 71, all the way to cleveland”. I always just thought it was people out west, putting an article in front of their nouns, to make them feel important, in their shallow, useless lives. I never understood some things about regional dialect. I get that some people say pop, others cola, and for inbread hicks in the south, everything is just a coke. I get that. I get people of rural upbringings will sometimes put unnecessary r’s or remove g’s from certain words like warshington, or swimmin’. I never will get the Highway thing. Call it what it is. Route 30 is either Route 30, new 30, old 30, or just plain damn 30. Not, “the 30″. If you live in Chicago, you either took I-90, or 90, not the 90.

I’ve decided I can no longer tolerate people who talk this way. Life is too short. From now on, anybody who puts a The in front of their highway, is getting  kick to the balls. Now their will be exceptions. For instance, the hershey highway, will still be the hershey highway. Any expressway with an actual the in it can get away. I implore everyone to help me rid the world of this problem.