We might be confused if you call it a highway, that sounds like a country road, maybe driving out to the desert… the freeway is the appropriate term to call the nightmarish cluster fuck we travel by here. And yes it’s “the” 405, 5, 118, 170, etc…
@socalmom007 having driven on several of the LA “freeways” I think the more appropriate term would be “parkway.” 
In MD, we call them highways. We do have a couple of parkways (i.e. GW Parkway which is short for George Washington Parkway and runs along the Virginia side of the Potomac River). These parkways were originally designed as more scenic routes but they are so heavily traveled now, they are just like any other freeway/highway/beltway around here.
@showmom858 - aw, I didn’t know Jer retired. I listened to them faithfully while stuck in traffic on the 805.
And to comment on the original post - I started hearing “Cali” around 4 yrs ago when D attended an OOS school. I don’t like it, either. I don’t think I’ve heard CA residents in my area call it that.
While not a native, I’ve been living in SoCal for well over two decades.
I’ve never said (nor would I ever say) “Cali” in referring to my now-home state. The only time I’ve ever used it is in written form here on CC – specifically in the Parents of the HS Class of 2017 thread – in order to differentiate between USCaro vs. USCali, as there it often was confusing which school people were referring to in writing “USC.”
I grimace when I hear “Cali”, but I really get upset when someone spells “no one” as “noone”.
I’d guess noone was a typo. That’s all.
“UMich” is just a CC thing to distinguish it from other UMs or Michigan State.
I see “noone” all the time now. Drives me nuts.
When I was a kid, USC was typically called “Southern Cal.” While some people still use it, 10-15 years ago the school went on a campaign to stop people from using the phrase. The school bigwigs seemed to think people would mistake it for the southern branch of Cal. [Currently rolling my eyes.]
“Frisco” was often used by SF locals up until the 50’s, when local newspaperman Herb Caen wrote an essay on why people shouldn’t use it. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon and suddenly “Frisco” was verboten.
UCB as a way to refer to Berkeley never took off. When people started trying to call it that, maybe back in the 80’s, there was a bank called Union Bank of California that everyone referred to as UBC. People said UCB sounded too much like a bank.
Up here in Portland (Oragun, NOT Or-ee-gone), we say “California” and attempt to add a note of dripping contempt. <>
When I was at MIT, it was call “Tech” and Caltech was “Caltech,” also with a note of dripping contempt. There seems to be more respect for Caltech from MIT students these days.
When I was growing up in Philadelphia, back in the '60s and early '70s, we called it “filthydelphia” because we were still burning coal for electricity and the soot was horrible. Thank heavens for Nixon and the Clean Air Act. (I certainly never would have thought I’d describe Nixon in those terms, but there it is. History is what it is.)
And finally, I notice that no one has mentioned the tendency of anyone who lives with fifty miles of New York City to call it “THE city” as if there is no other city.
San Francisco native and lifelong Northern Californian here…Just say no to Frisco and to a lesser extent San Fran. Though I’d never say it myself it’s not as grating. As others have said, it’s “The City,” although even though I use it all the time given its relatively small size (4th largest city in California) it’s kind of pretentious to call itself that, but oh well.
And absolutely no to Cali!!
^^Yeah, we refer to NYC as The city in casual conversation. because if you live in the area, and you say “I’m going into the city for the day”–what other city could you possibly be referring to? It’s not like there’s tons of them stacked up all together.
Agree with @lookingforward that Philly is completely unacceptable as a noun. I’ll give some leeway to visitors who use it as an adjective (Philly cheesesteak); but really, that’s redundant, as what other type of cheesesteak is there?
The NFL draft runs for the next three days in Philadelphia. I will cringe the first 20 or so times that I hear a TV commentator say “Philly,” and by Friday night I will probably be in a full-fledged fury shrieking, “It’s Philadelphia!” at the TV every time I hear it. But since we talk kind of fast, true Philadelphians don’t take very long to say the full name of the city. Phonetically, it’s something like, “Fluffya,” which is quick yet respectful.
And as an additional tutorial for students new to the area: it’s Penn (not U Penn or U of P), St. Joe’s (never St. Joseph’s) and Villanova (although some will accept 'Nova as an adjective). Also, most residents say “wooder” for “water” so don’t let that confuse you.
I think the Cali thing bugs me because it sounds like using a nickname that you aren’t close enough friends to use. Like calling William “Billy” when you’ve just met him & don’t know his preference.
Huh? But if you are a tourist or an outsider then why is that a problem? Do people travel to California to pretend they live there?
Do people come to California to annoy us by using the wrong name for our state?
They probably aren’t even thinking about it Fang. They obviously have heard it somewhere so they use it. But I don’t think they are using it to try and convince people they fit in or live there.
I haven’t sensed it elsewhere in California, but people in the SF Bay Area do tend to look down their noses at anyone from outside the Bay Area. The attitude here is we’re smarter, we’re richer, we’re more cultured, our weather’s great, and we live in a prettier area than you. And within the Bay Area, San Franciscans take that attitude to an insufferable extreme.
I say that as one who lives 20 minutes from downtown SF, spent many years working in “The City”, and loves the place.
Always strange to me to hear folks in SoCal call their freeways “The 405.” In NorCal, we just say we’re taking “101.”
When I was a kid in the Bay Area, it was “the Nimitz” for our freeway. I’m not even sure what the number is now, because I think it was 17 then.
How do you feel about “the land of fruits and nuts”? Just kidding, but I also find the freeway thing strange. We don’t say the 59, just 59.
The only time I’ve ever heard anyone refer to California as “Cali” is here on College Confidential. They may be the same people who refer to university as “uni.” I’ve never heard anyone say either in real life.