US Soft Drink Map
How fun! The question of generic soft drink names has plagued me ever since Tim Minnesota moved to my hometown of St. Louis in the seventh grade. Perfect brown curls, sexy brown eyes, a body to die for, and... and pop?
The cognitive dissonance produced by hearing a northerner refer to my precious soda as "pop" was almost too much to bear, and ever since I've judged people just the tiniest bit by the word that they use to casually refer to soft drinks. It makes me a bad but interesting person, and now thanks to the power of computing I can simplify the process of potable persecution by taking a look at this handy, linguistically fascinating map.
Mama Tiny always said "Coke," which I can now see is appropriate if you come from western Arkansas like she does. But I grew up saying "soda" - and low and behold, what do we see in the middle of the map but a big yellow "soda" circle hovering right over eastern Missouri. Yet my fellow Missourians in Kansas City clearly prefer that most hideous of words, "pop!"
It's a whole new world of red and blue states! The only difference is that this time I'm rooting for the red states. "Pop?" Are we in Pleasantville? I think not!
You say soda, I say pop -- U.S. soft drink generic name map [BookOfJoe]
tiny dancer
Posted to In the World on 5 September 2008
· Comments (10)
Other stuff like this: coke, cola, map, pop, soda
Within one hour of its unboxing, The One became the undisputed ruler of Tiny's entire home. Buy this or despair.
Haha, being from Seattle, I obviously grew up saying Pop. But sometime around Junior High, I decided I hated the word Pop for a beverage, so I trained myself to say Soda. I'm one of the only people who I ever hear using it naturally here, except for ex-Californians.
I have seen this map before, and it's cool.
By the way, what part of this story is Homotron related? Are we fascinated now with the technology that goes into soda syrups and carbonation that form together to create an immensely delicious chemical reaction that mixes well with alcohol, that we must figure out what people call it?
This is awesome. I'm from Cali, and I remember learning that there were people who didn't say "soda". It was rather disturbing.
And I am the anamolly that says soda even though I grew up clearly in coke territory. I thought it was hilarious when I moved to the UP of Michigan for a short stint all the kids said pop.
And this is so homotron. It's a map. Online. Don't hate, Lydecker! ;)
Tiny, this will probably blow your mind but here goes:
In Australia everyone calls it "soft drink".
I kid you not.
I grew up right in the dark red of Texas, and I've always called it soda.
There was this lady I worked with at Denny's who called it "pop". She said she was from Pittsburgh. I was fascinated. I had heard it called "Soda Pop" before on TV, but in real life, it had always been called "Soda" or "Coke" but never "Pop" before. I wondered what strange planet this "Pittsburgh" was.
I've been in most places where people call it soda or coke. But I learned about Pop only from other people visiting. I could never use pop cos it sounds like a verb not a noun to me.
But the weirdest is in Mexico (the parts I've been) where they call it "refresco" which translates to "refreshment" or "refresher." And they look at me weird when I say Soda.
In greater Boston, there are still some old-schoolers who refer to all soft drinks as tonic. (Maybe this accounts for greater Boston's paler yellow in the map.) Having lived in Pittsburgh, Memphis, and Boston, I've run the gamut. I've never understood the "coke" phenomenon, though. When I first moved to Memphis and asked for a Coke, I was met with the response "What flavor?" (And yes, this was long enough ago that there wasn't even an old Coke vs. new Coke debate.) I'm not sure Coke is ubiquitous enough to qualify for the "Kleenex/Xerox" phenomenon, but then again, my reference would suggest otherwise. :-)
It's always been coke down here in sunny Dallas, Texas.
Soda.
I've gotten in some fierce battles with people over this. Pop is a noise. Soda is a beverage.
Just so everyone knows, this is where that map is from:
http://popvssoda.com:2998/
it's great and gives you a complete breakdown by area, including all the random responses that people have come up with!