There are 22 messages totalling 434 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. 'the' in place names (Kaye) (2) 2. The great California freeway isogloss revisited 3. 'the the' names; front vowels before l 4. RE /bijl/ (3) 5. "the" 101 (5) 6. Highland/drylang fish (4) 7. dryland fish (3) 8. trizzle 9. ways of dealing with names 10. dryland fish, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 00:04:22 EST From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: 'the' in place names (Kaye) In relation to Vicki's comments below: First, El Bronx is better than Los Bronx, etymology aside--after all, The Bronx IS (not ARE) up and the Battery down. Second, I grew up in Washington Heights (163rd St.) in the late 40's and early 50's and never heard "the Heights" for it. Brooklyn Heights, si; Washington Heights, no. As for those freeways, while I'm still in the autobiographical mode, I concur with the suggestion that both the (optional) move from names to numbers and the (apparently obligatory) move to the 'the 405' (in place of '405' for what I remember as the San Diego Freeway) are fairly recent developments. I do remember, though, 'the 605' for what was evidently named, but not generally referred to as, the San Gabriel Freeway. I agree that the article in these (and in 'the Mission [District]') represents a remnant from the full moniker, e.g. 'the 405 freeway', on the pattern of 'the San Diego Freeway'. Odd that one of these truncations seems to have occurred only in southern California and the other only in San Francisco. I guess a Whorfian would draw some sort of inference about the attitudes of Angelenos and San Franciscans toward their freeways and neighborhoods respectively. --Larry ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The most famous "the" anomaly in English geography may be "The Bronx" (which can be explained historically, but is still anomalous); the local Spanish press duly translates this, and refers to "El Bronx" (though if one were to follow the historical explanation, it should probably be "Los Bronx"). New York City also has two neighborhoods with "Heights" in their name, Washington Heights and Brooklyn Heights, either of which may be referred to as "the Heights," but that's a more straightforward shortening, I think. Vicki Rosenzweig Associate Editor, Computing Reviews vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com 212-626-0666