Las Vegas street name colloquialisms
I realized today that we in Las Vegas have a few streets which are said a specific way, and while outsiders would understand us, they might not say the street names in the same way as a person who has lived here for a while.
Most, if not all, of the streets in this city have a suffix — Ave, St, Blvd, Way, etc. When giving directions or stating the location of a landmark, no one ever says “Oh, it’s located on Rainbow Boulevard” or “You’ll turn left down Tropicana Avenue”; these suffixes are dropped.
However, there are a few streets in the city for which one Must Always affix the suffix. The three that sprang to mind today were:
Maryland Parkway, Boulder Highway, and Las Vegas Boulevard. You’ll never hear a Las Vegas native say just “Maryland” or “Boulder” or “Las Vegas” — you just won’t.
We also refer to I-215 as “the two-fifteen”… but I’ve heard other cities do this with their freeways. Sometimes we call US-95 “the ninety-five” and I-15 “the fifteen,” but I don’t think I have ever heard “I-215″ in colloquial speech. It’s always just “the two-fifteen”
Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that we do that, and wondered why. Does anyone know? And are there any other streets around town with similar “rules”?
September 7th, 2008 at 8:39pm
I am not sure why we do that. Maybe because it would be confusing to say “make a left at boulder and then right on Las Vegas. It would kinda sound like you would turn at the boulder then head right on to Vegas. I dunno. I am tired and wanted to write something. Love you!
September 7th, 2008 at 8:41pm
I think your instructions would be even more confusing since Boulder Hwy and LV Blvd never intersect. You’d be driving forever and have no idea what was going on!
September 7th, 2008 at 8:41pm
I hate you.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:42pm
I used to live on this street called Sepulveda, which was said differently by like everyone I heard say it. It sounds like it should be one of those street prefixes. It’s an avenue though.
I love that I live two streets down from Shamu. No suffix.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:43pm
*Street suffix, not prefix.