do you say pop or soda?
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I say soda.
I say soda.
--Brandon Young
Definitely Soda...
...out here in Northern California.
FWIW, going to pro baseball games over a lot of the country, I never heard a vendor shout "pop", or even "soda pop", until I was on the east coast. (Boston, I think.) That doesn't mean I'm certain that it didn't happen further west, or that it's a definitive sample, of course.
Eric
But I lived in Northern California for 67+ years, and it was Pop
Pop or rarely, Soda Pop. never just Soda.
A Soda was a fountain drink, usually a citrus juice, ( real citrus juice ) mixed with carbonated water, usually with ice cream in the mix.
But Coke(tm) or Pepsi (tm), and the like were Pop.
Most of my life, 1955-2011, I lived in the Southern San Francisco bay area. and before that, In the Fresno/Visalia area in the Central Valley. The one nine month stretch in Southern California it was strictly Pop.
Holly
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly
strange
I lived in Northern California for abou 28 years and I never once called it pop. Soda yes, even cola or by the brand name. I use the word Sodie pop to drive my roommates nuts when I have to correct people and say I'm from Californy.
Both
Both are used here in the People's Democratic Republic of Massachusetts. We also use the term tonic as well.
I was going to say that too
A lot of my family lives in the towns north of Boston, and they call it "tonic" -- which confused me as a kid; I thought they were offering me tonic water (the stuff with quinine in it).
Now I think most people I know say "soft drink".
Tonic
I grew up and still live north of Boston. As a kid we always called it tonic. When I was in high school we did a couple of camping trips cross country. After getting enough wierd looks asking for tonic we started asking for brand names such as Coke.
Michelle B
Tonic, Yuuck
Tonic to me is quinine soda. To me it has a bad taste and I am also allergic to quinine.
Newspaper article "Tonic loses its fizz"
An article in today's Boston Sunday Globe (Metro section) is titled "Tonic loses its fizz" with a subtitle "A Hub linguisitc idiosyncracy gives way to soda".
One line of the story reads "But in Boston, and only in Boston, it was 'tonic'." The article is about regional names for cabonated beverages and was inspired by Harvard University Press's publishing of the final volume of The Dictionary of American Regional English this month. It says the dictionary is "based largely on a massive national linguistic survey conducted in the late 60's".
The story can be found at http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/03/24/boston-word-toni... and The Globe charges for access.
Michelle
Michelle B
Neither
Down here in Texas, we call everything Coke. As in, "What kind of Coke you want?" "I'll take a Dr. Pepper."
Melanie
That's how I remember it
That's how I remember it growing up in Texas. When I moved to Ohio, it was all pop and they would get so mad at me when I would say "Want a coke?" because they wanted something like Diet or Mt. Dew or something.
Samirah M. Johnstone
Ohio born
all my life, called it "Coke". It's really who you grow up with. I still slip on occasion.
Pop
I grew up in Oklahoma, and have lived in Texas for over 30 years. I use Pop. I've also heard the term soda water.
What part of TX Melanie? I'm in Garland (Dallas) myself.
West Texas, in the Midland
West Texas, in the Midland area.
A topic best avoided
I once saw two friends of mine arguing over this. One pulled a GUN on the other. The friendship between the two ended there.
Wow. Even the pepsi/ coke
Wow. Even the pepsi/ coke commercials don't get that violent. I'm sorry but to pull a gun over soda is just crazy
Neither
Given that my part of the world is south eastern Australia (Melbourne) this is probably not totally surprising.
We refer to such drinks simply as soft drinks or by brand name (e.g. Coke, etc.)
I
I was going to say the same thing.
Yep
It's softie or a brand; Coke, Pepsi, Solo... does anyone else in the world know what Solo is I wonder? Curiously or not, Dr Pepper and 7 Up seem to be incursioning here of late, ah globalisation.
Kris
Lolly water
Dr. Pepper and 7up have been available for yonks, though in the past they were hard to find. Mostly Dr. Pepper was real difficult.
Cherry Coke however is rare. Irn-Bru is easier to get.
Aussie lollies...
Irn bru is horrible stuff, but some of their adverts are inspired.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yZOab5gl-4
Solo
An orange drink?
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
good guess
But, Lemon actually. I think Solo was born in the 70's with a macho man, big mustache spill half of it as you guzzle it down to quench that serious thirst, image. The recent ads pretty much sends that idea up while following it, which is sorta fun in an obscure way.
Oh, I've never heard of Irn Bru or whatever, sheltered life no doubt. sounds like a variation on Irish Moss. That snowman ad is not bad though even if it doesn't tell me much about what sorta drink it is.
Kris
Irn bru
Pronounced 'I-run broo'. It is an rusty orange fruity concoction that is tooth-waterinbgly sweet. I can't stand it, but the Scots drink it by the tankerload.
Irn bru; the transgender connection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irn-Bru
Interestingly, until I read that article I did not know of their TS 'connection':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aybGmG1bTCk
That apparently caused a bit of a stir at the time.
Hate to be contrary, but...
I'm in central Canada, and here, if I asked for a 'soda pop' I'd be laughed at. Definitely sort of a 'kids only' phrase.
It's fairly common though, if somebody asks if you want a drink, to respond 'got any pop?', so I guess we use that.
But mostly, around here, it's 'soft drink', like one word. Weird, but it's used lots.
I always wonder why 'soda pop' has such a childish or gay connotation around here.
When we first move to New
When we first move to New Mexico (Albuturkey) in 1969, it was pop. Now with the major influx of easterners, its soda.
Mark
In the UK
In my youth we used to refer to all fizzy soft drinks as pop. (Pre 1950/60) We never used the word soda.
Later, as the global market introduced many foreign brands, (coke, pepsi etc,)and choices expanded, we took to refering to them and ordering them by name. Today in a bar in the UK we usually order by the brand name after glancing at the dispensers arrayed along the bar. Just the same as if we are ordering a beer. Fairly obvious really.
Though it's hardly something to shoot somebody over. Lord protect the good ole' Yellow Rose.
Bev. Yuck - yuck - yuck.
XZXX.
I think it depends upon
cultural heritage. In the UK, soft drinks are pop; soda is something you put with spirits from a syphon. Increasingly, however, globalisation is taking over and brands are poisoning the language as they do everywhere else. Coke, for God's sake is something you stick in blast furnaces, not some toothrotting, horsepiss marketed by a huge multinational who polluted Father Christmas's robes - yeah they used to be green.
Angharad
Don't fudge it
Say what you mean!
Pop here. Brand name is usual, but when I was a kid in the Far East, the local 'brew' was Frazer and Neave, IIRC. Now owned by Coca Cola, or Cadbury-Schweppes or some such. We asked for it by flavour, as in 'Can I have some fizzy orange?' or 'Can I have an orange pop?'
Heck...
...it's common to use the brand name as a generic (no doubt much to the annoyance of its competitors).
However, outside colloquial usage, companies tend to refer to them as "soft drinks" - but that term also includes 'flat' drinks such as concentrated or pre-diluted squashes (or "juice drinks" as they're referred to - never mind they often contain <10% juice, the rest being water, additives [colourings, flavourings, preservatives etc.] and either sugar or increasingly artificial sweeteners [marketed as "No added sugar"]) or mixers (tonic water, lime cordial [technically a squash but marketed differently], etc.).
Energy drinks are always referred to by brand name (especially the one headquartered on the shores of Fuschl-am-see in Austria that allegedly gives you wings...)
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Coke
I thought it was that white powder that people like to stuff up their noses.
Coke and 7-Up
Coca-Cola used to have real cocaine in it. The recipe is secret, but according to a leaked version that purports to be correct, they now add a denatured derivative of the coca plant.
7-Up used to have lithium (lithium citrate) in it.
In their original versions, they were used as pick-me-up drinks.
Pop or Soda
I use: Cola, Coke, Pop or Soda.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Changed
I grew saying Pop, but in recent years, I find myself saying soda. The full name is soda pop, but we usually say one or the other. I think my change is due to television. It seems that I never hear pop by anyone on TV, only soda.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Regiional Names
I have traveled a lot while doing a military career. pop and or soda tend to be the two basic uses. I think soda is mor prominent. In the New England area I've heard the word Coke describe any flavor of carbonated soft drinks. My grandmother called it Pop, we my siblings and I grew up calling it soda. Around my friends they use the commercial name of the product Ie Dr. Pepper, Pepsi etal.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
Soda? Pop?
In Central Illinois as a child, we called it "soda pop" (or as my grandma said it, "sody pop") or sometimes just "pop." (Anyone else remember those psychedelic TV commercials circa 1970 for Nesbitt's Orange Soda Pop?) "Soda" by itself meant unflavored carbonated water or sparkling mineral water, and "tonic" meant soda water flavored with quinine (as in "gin & tonic"). In southeastern Michigan a few years later it was pretty much just "pop"--saying "soda pop" would get you funny looks. The only people I ever heard saying just "soda" for a sweetened soft drink were from New York or New Jersey. I knew the term "soft drink" but it seemed sort of like a technical classification term, like "dry goods" or "dairy products."
A friend from Tennessee explained that where he grew up they called all soft drinks "coke"--for example at fast food outlets, you'd be asked what kind of coke you wanted with your meal, even if they served Pepsi products.. His theory was that the likelihood of hearing that usage was inversely proportional to your distance from Atlanta (where the Coca-Cola company is headquartered).
Thanks for the reminder, justme
That happened to me in Tennessee when I was stationed north of Memphis, ( Memphis Naval Air Station), for electronics school.
I asked if they had Coke, they said "Yes." and served me Pepsi. I had an argument that went clear to the manger when I refused to pay for it, but they finally backed down. ( after the first sip, I left it alone. Pepsi is not 'The Real Thing.'
Another time in a similar situation, I was served Dr. Pepper, but there was no argument when I took a sip and sent it back.
Speaking of which, I was told Dr. Pepper was big there. But I used to go bowling on Saturday nights when I didn't have duty.
Our group usually won at least one case of Dr. Pepper in the contests the bowling alley ran. At first, since none of us drank it, we'd carry it back to base, ( over a mile ), on foot. But finding few takers there, we began leaving the cases stacked on bridge. Soon there were more than a down cases sitting there, so eventually we just refused to take our winnings, telling the proprietor to add it to the next prize.
Apparently none of the people in Millington drank it either.
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly
I was a hardcore coke drinker
Then New coke hit, I think I was high school at the time. My friends were Pepsi drinkers, so when I switched they kept teasing me that I finally got smart. I have tried coke since they claim it got good again and bleh. But also in 2006 I heart a medical scare and was put in the hospital in the cardiac ward for a week. 1 week and no caffeine. So now I drink root beer and it better be A&W in a can or bottle or Barqs in a fountion (Yes, I know it has caffeine, but it's hard to find fountain root beer.)
I have traveled across the US by car and normally I don't ask, I tend to find it in the mini marts. Usually I see the sign saying Soft Drinks/juices. When at a restaurant, I tend to go by brand, and if they don't have root beer it's either 7up, sprite, sierra mist or some type of lemonade (Applebee's strawberry lemonade is awesome stuff.)
Who from California remembers Shasta cola? I loved the grape and Orange they had out when I was a kid. Tried the Faygo brand out here and I swear there is a chemical aftertaste. It's nasty stuff. And darn it, I just want a good grape soda, is that so wrong?
How about RC cola is that still out there?
Coke isn't "The Real Thing" anymore
...but MexiCoke (Coca-Cola bottled in Mexico) which became available here in Seattle a couple of years ago is still made with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, and tastes just as I remember from before they made that switch in the U.S. (shortly before the whole New Coke debacle). It even comes in the traditional 12-ounce heavy glass "Coke bottle" with the logo screen-printed on the side, and non-twist-off caps. It costs $16 for a 24-pack at Costco, and worth every penny of the premium--I won't drink American Coke anymore.
My grandma (the same one who said "sody pop") owned and ran a motel for many years that was next door to an A&W drive-in so I grew up drinking their root beer, which didn't seem to be affected quite as badly by the switch to HFCS. I guess the stronger flavor must mask it better.
In Illinois we could get Shasta ("It hasta be Shasta"). It was considered the discount brand, a step above store brands, and I thought some of their favors were pretty good but most were just OK. In Michigan no Shasta but plenty of Faygo, which is headquartered in Detroit. 50g of sugar (usually HFCS now) per 12 oz can and little pretense that the favors were anything but purely artificial. Heck, they make "Redpop" and don't even try to claim it's strawberry or cherry or any such thing, and in my family at least we called their "grape" flavor "Purplepop" because it bore only a passing resemblance to the flavor of Concord grapes. And we loved them as kids.
Shasta's Still Here...
...though it's been replaced by private label drinks at many or most of the chains. (I think Shasta actually makes many or even most of the private label store brands out here; they're located at the end of the San Mateo Bridge in Hayward.) Dollar Tree here in the San Francisco Bay Area sells the two-liter bottles and half-liter four-pack cans for $1 each.
I've wondered about RC myself. There's a hot dog chain here (Top Dog) that sells it from a drink machine, so apparently the syrup is still available. Can't remember whether I've seen cans or bottles of it lately, though. Cola's just about my least favorite drink; I'd rather have just about any other soft drink, or water. So I haven't exactly been looking for Royal Crown.
Eric
RC
RC Cola is still available -- at least it is in Michigan. It's pretty common around here.
A long time ago...
...in a hotel restaurant far far away (Grand Island, near Niagara Falls, NY) I asked a waitress to bring me whatever diet soda they had. "Diet So-dah? We don't haave diet So-dah...You mean like seltzer?" "No...Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi?" "Ohh...You mean Diet Paaaahp!" Soda in some areas refers only to club soda or seltzer and drinks such as Dad's (Why not Moms, I beg to differ) Root Beer or Grape Fanta or Coca-Cola are considered pop or 'soda pop.' Thankfully, our discussion didn't lapse into the subtle nuanced flavor of "New Coke."
Love, Andrea Lena
Most folks
Most folks in these parts refer to it as pop. I use both soda and pop.
Have a deliciously devious day,
Phosphates
When I was a girl Father took me to the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. While there were wonders aplenty to be seen there at the White City, somehow what stood out was my first taste of the marvelous bubbly concoction known as the phosphate. There were many delicious varieties--lemon phosphate, cherry phosphate, tho' I confess I didn't care for the celery so much---which could be got at the lunch counter in the DH Holmes exhibit. It was only with the turn of the new century that the term soda water started to come into usage; and then soda pop, and pop, but by then I'd been turned, and with my newly restricted diet these beverages made me deathly ill. I recall them fondly though, always associating them with hot summer days of the sort that I now sleep through, as the least amount of sunlight causes me to explode.
~hugs, Veronica
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
I've never heard anyone in
I've never heard anyone in Ontario say anything but pop. Can't speak for the rest of Canada though.
Soda, pop, phosphates
When I was growing up in central New York in the fifties and early sixties, It was soda, unless you were in a soda fountain. There a soda had ice cream in it and a phosphate was seltzer water, flavored with fountain syrups such as cherry, my favorite. Of course one could get flavored cokes made the same way such as vanilla. When I visited my uncle and aunt in Chicago, I had to make do with pop.
Liz
A few years ago...
A few years ago, when I was working in a grocery store, I had an American customer ask me where we kept the soda. I responded "isle three where we keep baking stuff." She looked at me oddly and asked "why would you keep it down there?" I was legitimately confused. When I realised that she didn't want baking soda I asked if she wanted carbonated water instead (that's the only term for soda I'd ever heard at that point: soda water). It turns out she just wanted a bottle of pop.
I faced similar difficulties a few years later when I ate for the first time at an American restaurant called "The Cheesecake Factory." I requested an iced tea and regretted it the moment it touched my tongue. It is amusing the trouble that silly little lexicon differences can cause.
Iced tea?
How many meanings can that have? It's tea that's been brewed, then chilled, and sweetened to a degree that varies by location. There may be lemon.
Or am I being parochial?
To a Canadian? Just one.
In Canada, iced tea is always sweet. When it comes to ordering, I usually say something along the lines of "Can I have a nestea?" because that's usually the brand of iced tea available. In New York, iced tea is literally cold tea. It's never sweetened and that option was not available on the menu. Before that experience I never even realised that iced tea could be sweetened or unsweetened. I never even thought of iced tea as "tea" before. To me tea was brewed fresh and drunk hot. Now when I'm in the states I always double check to see if it's sweetened or not. That tea was quite bitter.
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