About putting "the" in front of things, there are a number of situations here in Southern California where this distinguishes the speech of Los Angeles County from my own Orange County.

LA has "the valley" and one can tell somebody's not an Orange County local if they say "the Brea Canyon" or "the South Coast Plaza". Here in Orange County it's simply "Brea Canyon" and "South Coast Plaza".

Southern Californians in general can be distinguished from their Northern counterparts by the former saying "super" where the latter say "hella".

SoCal: "It was super late and I was super hungry so I went to McDonalds and they were super busy."

NorCal: "It was hella late and I was hella hungry so I went to McDonalds and they were hella busy."