THE THE

I spoke the offending word on Monday and the reaction was swift and violent...

Me: The snow getting bad enough that they may close the 5.

Boss: No! Don't ever say that again!

Me: What snow?

Boss: No, "the."

Me: As in?

Boss: "The 5." Don't ever say "the 5." Interstate 5 is fine, I-5 is ok. But not "the 5."

Me: What's wrong with "the 5"?

Boss: It means you're from California, we can't have that.

Me: What's wrong with California? We're only 25 miles from the California border. Almost everyone I've met since I moved here is from California.

Boss: Yeah, but everyone here also hates Californians. If you say "the 5" you're a Californian. Last time someone said "the 5" on the air, we got all sorts of angry phone calls from viewers.

Me: Really?

Boss: Oh yeah.

I'm not quite sure why Californians put "the" in front of their freeway names, but it didn't strike me as weird when I moved to LA in 1996.

Perhaps it didn't sound strange to me because I had moved to California from Utah. In Utah, they'll put a "the" ahead of just about any noun you can imagine, as in "Doug is going to school down at the BYU," or "I've got a job down at the Zion's Bank."

Now in Utah they add a "down at" or (if you're quite old) "down to" ahead of the "the." But my point is that it wasn't much of a transition for me to hear and, yes, even say "the" before naming freeways in LA.

If I am to avoid the wrath of the good TV viewers of Oregon, I must stop he "the"-ing as soon as possible. It won't be easy. I still say "Hey, man" which, if I'm not mistaken, fell out of use about the time "Welcome Back Kotter" went of the air.

But try I will. But tonight, just for old times sake, I'll take the 5, to the Redwood Highway, to the 101 and check out the coastline.

There, that felt great.