A Very Important Poll

[melannen]

A question that came up as a result of both my going through my local history books and an argument Mom and I had on our mini-road-trip out to South Jersey:

Poll #21872 Important Poll

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 111

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Which is more correct:

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We drove to the Chesapeake Bay
27 (27.0%)

We drove to Chesapeake Bay
73 (73.0%)

Which is more correct:

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We drove to the San Francisco Bay
32 (31.4%)

We drove to San Francisco Bay
70 (68.6%)

Which is more correct:

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We drove to the Hudson Bay
21 (21.0%)

We drove to Hudson Bay
79 (79.0%)

Which is more correct:

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We drove to the Delaware Bay
29 (30.9%)

We drove to Delaware Bay
65 (69.1%)

Which is more correct:

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We drove to the Monterey Bay
11 (10.8%)

We drove to Monterey Bay
91 (89.2%)

Which is more correct:

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We drove to the bay
71 (68.3%)

We drove to the Bay
33 (31.7%)

Which is more correct

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We drove down to the bay
78 (90.7%)

We drove up to the bay
8 (9.3%)

Which is more correct

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We drove toward the bay on the 80
42 (42.4%)

We drove toward the bay on 80
57 (57.6%)

You are from:

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the Bay Area or nearby
18 (16.5%)

the Tidewater or nearby
9 (8.3%)

Canadia
8 (7.3%)

Somewhere else on the West Coast
16 (14.7%)

Somewhere else on the East Coast
27 (24.8%)

Somewhere else in North America
28 (25.7%)

Somewhere primarily English-speaking other than North America
19 (17.4%)

I don't speak English as my primary language and y'all need to sort your stuff out
8 (7.3%)

Markobutono
5 (4.6%)

Comments

[megpie71]

My only comment would be that in Australia, we'd drive to the bay at 80 (km/h, speed limits permitting), and we'd probably get there via something named "The Coast Road" (either formally or informally).

[sophia_sol]

Driving either "down" or "up" to the bay depends entirely on where the bay in question is in relation to where you are! And honestly I would usually skip the up/down word from that sentence entirely. And the sentence absolutely needs a specific about which bay you are driving to.

(You can tell from this that I do not live very close to any particular bay.)

[kore]

Grew up in CA, grew up some more in NM, lived in Seattle the past 20 years.

One thing is I think of "Monterey Bay" as a proper name -- so "the Monterey Bay" sounds wrong, like "the San Francisco" or "the Notre Dame," if that makes sense. "We went to Notre Dame," or "We went to the Notre Dame cathedral."

[melannen]

Honestly you would probably not drive to the Bay on 80 in America either, but there are no interstate highways that connect to more than one of the bays in question (I would generally drive to the Bay via either Route 50 or Route 404 or sometimes Route 2), so I picked one that sort of vaguely connects the San Francisco Bay to New York Bay. Ish.

[kore]

Also "The bay on 80" sounds like the bay is ON 80. But "The bay on the 80" also sounds weird.

[melannen]

See, I would say it depends on whether you are going up or down too! But I've been told you can only ever go down to the Bay regardless of where it is.

[sophia_sol]

I....I suppose you could be going down as in elevation-wise? You're heading to a coastline so that is probably less elevation than where you are prior to "going down to the bay"?

[the_rck]

Up to the bay if going north. Down to the bay if going south. Out to or over to the bay if going east or west.

The bays I'm likely to talk about driving to are Saginaw Bay and other Great Lakes bays, and I wouldn't use an article for most of them. Of course, a lot of Michiganders just refer to Saginaw as 'the bay' as it kind of dwarfs the others in the area.

For bays that aren't so local, I'm not sure how I'd speak of them. I haven't heard of some of those you list.

[mrkinch]

I'm fascinated to know why its "the SF Bay" but just "Monterey Bay". Could it be analogy with Monterey as a general place, which SF is less so, being closely surrounded by many other "places", other civic entities? *insert shrug emoji"

[melannen]

Yes, my mom's argument is that it's a proper name, so it doesn't get the article. But you would absolutely say that you went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame! You would probably not say you went to the Notre Dame Cathedral (although you might) but you would definitely say you went to the National Cathedral (or that you went to the First Methodist Church down the street.)

(I think Notre Dame (and also places like St. Paul's) are actually a special case because they're possessives and you don't ever put definite articles on possessives.)

And people seem pretty unanimous, once they have thought about it, that all rivers from the Mississippi River to the Thames River to the Ganges River get the "the". So I don't think the "proper name" argument is valid (but I think some people may have been taught it anyway.)

[kore]

Hunh. Well now I have no idea why "we went to the Mississippi River" sounds OK to me, but "we went to the Monterey Bay" sounds weird. "We went to the Monterey bay," as in "bay in Monterey"? Weird.

[melannen]

I don't know! I added that in particular because for me the Chesapeake is ALWAYS "The" and Monterey is NEVER "The" and honestly the others I have a preference but it could go either way. I thought maybe it was a local vs. not-local thing but Monterey is way more unanimous than the others!

It could be something about Monterey as a place-name in general? But IDK, people still say "The Monterey area" just like they would "The Chesapeake area".

[duskpeterson]

I've lived in Maryland for decades. I've always heard it as "the Chesapeake Bay" or "the bay."

[melannen]

Elevation is what I'm thinking, maybe?

There's also a locally beloved and very specifically Baltimore dialect phrase "going down the ocean" which means to Ocean City on the Atlantic (which is the other side of the Bay, and definitely south from Baltimore) but I don't know which came first or why.

[duskpeterson]

(Though I should add that I have no opinion on "the bay" or "the Bay.")

[landofnowhere]

"Did you ever see a whale/ with a polka dot tail? ... down by the bay."

[melannen]

Me too! But I have this pile of Tidewater Publishers books that are supposed to be full of local information and half of them leave off the The. And my mom, who has lived here at least 40 years, claimed she didn't know what I was talking about when I said it was wrong. (And then said it in repeatedly in casual conversation and denied it when I pointed it out.) I'm wondering if there's some official style guide somewhere that claims bays are never The or something.

(They also leave it off on the TV show Bones, but on Bones they also talk about driving to Baltimore on "The 95" and Glen Burnie is a picturesque waterfront town, so Bones doesn't have a say.)

[sophia_sol]

Interesting! There isn't any destination locale I can think of where it would be natural for me to add a "down" in my sentence describing my approach to it. There are some where it wouldn't feel wrong, like "going down to the States" feels fine, but I also wouldn't actively choose that option over just "going to the States". Maybe Niagara Falls. Maybe.

[melannen]

Interesting! I feel like around here we often go up to the city (even if the city is down) and go down to the shore (even if the shore is up.) But there are exceptions. But we also go up to the mountains and up to the lake, and down to the river. And up to New England and down to the South, of course - Richmond being the definitely South means you can only go down to Richmond even if you always go up to Baltimore even if you're currently north of Baltimore. (Going to the South as a place being distinct from going south as a direction, of course.)

[melannen]

Because English? :D

[melannen]

That was meant to test for the weird parts-of-California thing of calling Interstate Highways "The" that gets all over the place because the people who write TV shows think it's normal.

[kore]

//hauls out fave icon

[melannen]

That is sensible to me!

I have sometimes though the 'The' is there mostly as a superlative and would only get used for bays that are The Bay, at least regionally, but I'm not sure I can make that hold what either - as you say, there are bays that are The Bay but would never be called The X Bay.

[seascribble]

Notes on up and down to the bay; depends on if it's up or down of me on the map. I think I would usually say down, but can imagine situations in which up would not be weird.

Re: the many ticky boxes on location, I moved around A LOT as a child and now live in Canada.

[sophia_sol]

Honestly I think that the lack of up/down is a me thing, not a regional thing, and I think I avoid it because I am extremely directionally challenged so I don't want to be heard making assertions about something's cardinal location relative to me because I'd probably be wrong! And I'm pedantic enough that up/down has to be strictly interpreted according to either north/south or higher/lower if I'm going to say it....