“How did Southern Californians come to treat their highway route numbers as if they were proper names?”

Source: www.kcet.org

I can’t say how delighted this native Southern Californian was to read this (and especially to rediscover the classic SNL skit).  Despite living in Rhode Island, I retain this linguistic quirk that I subconsciously learned as a kid growing up in Southern California.  This is a shibboleth of mine, a distinctive pronunciation, word choice, or manner of speaking that reveals something about the speaker (such as place of origin, ethnic background, or group membership).     

Questions to Ponder: What are other shibboleths that you know?  Do you use any? 

Tags: California, language, transportation, toponyms.