“First of all it is “The 5”, not “The I5”. Actually “The 5” was called either “The Santa Ana freeway” or “The Golden State Freeway” before the Imnn nomenclature was even thought of by Washington. We even had the first freeway called the Pasadena Freeway, built before WWII, so we can call freeways whatever we want.”
Right on, dude. Who says Lost Angeles has no history? A lot of us (old timer natives) still refer to the freeways as you state:
Santa Ana, San Diego, Newport, Garden Grove, Riverside, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Ventura, Pasadena, Long Beach, San Bernardino, Pomona, etc.
Relatively newer freeways often go mainly by their numbers or another term:
Foothill, 57, 15, 605, Harbor, Century, etc.
Many roads and freeways in California follow paths going back hundreds of years. El Camino Real=101, roughly following the trail used between the missions, by Fr. Junipero Serra.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%C3%ADpero_Serra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_101
I took the test, and I have a West accent. Native SoCal. OC 60 years. Goldwater and then Reagan land.
Strange. I wonder what the difference is between a West accent and a Midland accent.
My father once had a Kansas accent, which either the army or my mother broke him of. Apparently it was quite strong.