How can we hope to unify the country when we can’t even agree on what to call carbonated beverages? If you ask your local bartender for a pop, a soda or a coke what will they put in your glass?
Results from a 20 year survey by cartographer Alan McConchie indicates strong regional differences or does the split go even deeper than soft drinks? Here
What is Chasten and Pete’s favorite soda?
Dr. Pecker
What is Chasten and Pete’s favorite beer?
Butt Tight
I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.
Hey Claudia – any “red pop” in your fridge?
—————
Nope, but we do call carbonated drinks pop. I mostly drink coffee in the morning and water after that. – Claudia
Strong disagree!
Daughter lived in Clinton, MS (Clinton Clan were/are as rich as the Bush clan for generations) for years 15 to 22 dears go. Spent many weeks there – many trips – NEVER HEAR anyone call Soda pop “COKE”.
I realy do not like “sweet tea”!
And Va. makes much better “hush puppies” than ms.
Definitely “soda” — now, but as a kid it was “pop”. Still hear “can of pop” around these NW parts. I’m curious what the “other” names are.
Maybe it’s a very local thing to call all sodas “coke”. Can’t imagine asking for a coke and being asked, “What kind?”
I don’t know for sure but I think “pop” comes from the sound of soda when you add any liquid to it.
“…Spent many weeks there – many trips – NEVER HEAR anyone call Soda pop “COKE”.”
Most likely regional, as I’ve heard it for years while living in the south. Soda is the more common name, but you do hear called sodas called Coke quite often.
I’m fascinated by how Kentucky got divided right down the middle between pop and coke. Fascinating.
Deep South here. Calling a soda coke down here is as natural as breathing, provided you aren’t a Yankee transplant. I’ve always found it to be a conversation starter for me when someone asks for a pop or a soda. I’m always curious as to where they are from.
Oh, and I meant to add that we say “cola” for just about any of them. I guess somewhere along the line we got lost? ;-p
In Pittsburgh it was pop because when you open the bottle it goes “pop”. This was before there were cans.
To me it has always been a can of pop. And I’m a native of the great Pacific NW, my wife who was also native to the NW called it soda but we got along fine together even with minor disagreements over what you call soft drinks. Now Mt. Dew is another story. Anyone remember Jolt Cola which was nothing but pure sugar and hyper amounts of caffeine and almost as bad or worse as Red Bull.
I lived in MS in the 60s and they’d ask for an “R oh C cola an a Moon Pie” for lunch. Or a Yahoo (a chocolate concoction). If they got a Pepsi or Coke they’d put salted peanuts in it.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
It’s merely mixer for the good stuff for those that prefer it.
When I live in NC most people said ‘soda pop’ – both words – or simply ‘sodao’. My Uncle used to ask for a Cole meaning a Pepsi. We never had it any at home because my mother didn’t like the sugar content. Moving to Ohio the first time I heard ‘pop’ I thought it was a joke. Everyone in the Columbus area and Cleveland says ‘pop’.
What was odd to me was visiting friends in Tennessee and hearing some of the older generation ask for a ‘dope’ or a ‘dope cola’. I don’t know if that term is still used.
Haven’t had a Yahoo or a Cheerwine in ages. Cracker Barrel has them, as well as, Moxie.
And what about Radar O’Reilly’s favorite soda Grape Nehi.
I don’t recall a preference between soda and pop, in fact it was often called soda-pop.
If you wanted something you asked for a Coke or a Pepsi or a ginger ale or a root beer, etc.
If you just asked for a “pop” yer gonna get a look of “yeah…… aaaah, what flavor do ya want?
A phosphate from the soda jerk at the soda fountain.
Why did they call that guy a soda jerk? Is it because he jerked the handle on the soda machine or was he really a jerk.
Jolt: All the sugar, twice the caffeine!
When I lived in Texas it was funny to hear people say “You want a coke?” Ya.” What kind?” How about orange?”
I still call it pop, though.
CO₂KE
My experience mirrors TRF’s.
Where I live and was raised in SE Texas, you used ‘coke'(with a small “c”) for any carbonated soft drink. If a kid used the word pop or soda, he was considered weird and was going to be set straight. It just didn’t happen. As far as we were concerned, pop and soda were Yankee language and that wasn’t a good thing. To us, Yankees were anyone who lived north of Dallas. At a BBQ, you’d ask your buddy if he wanted a coke or a beer and if he said he wanted a coke, then you’d ask him what kind. It might be a Dr Pepper, a 7-UP, a Pepsi, a root beer, a Mountain Dew or even a Coca-Cola, but they were all cokes.
Exactly Hambone. Could have written that myself.
Except we knew anyone that said pop or soda wasn’t native Texan.
Them: Can I have a sody pop?
Us: Where you from?
Also. Every copy you wanted was a Xerox. Then Xerox got huffy about it and now no one knows what Xerox is.
BEER!
Problem solved
@ Tim – FJB
I only saw salted peanuts go in RC colas in Texas. For some reason they were married here.
Tried it once. Seemed stupid so I only tried it once. Didn’t care for RC anyway. Salted peanuts didn’t make it better, IMO.
“You want a coke?”
“Sure.”
“What kind?”
“Peruvian.”
Pop was $0.15 a can on board the Kitty Hawk in the mid 70’s in all the pop machines and we drank a lot of it because most of the water on board the ship was really not fit to drink. When you’re young you can drink a lot of pop and not have it affect you like it does now. And besides we’d burn up all that energy from drinking pop with all of our hard work on the flight deck during flight ops. That and lots of strawberry Kool Aid which we called bug juice and I still drink strawberry Kool Aid to this day, pop not so much anymore.
Well, I can tell ya that if you’re in Georgia anywhere near Atlanta it’s COKE; ask for a soda and you get looked at crosseyed. I spent a couple years stationed at Warner Robins.
Corn syrup plus sugar equals a raging left kidney. Ask me how I know.
I had too much everyday for years. Haven’t had one now for 10 months. I feel better now thanks
‘coke-cola’
Not much for carbonated beverages but I do like an ice cold Vernor’s ginger ale on occasion when its scorching hot out.
A blowjob by any other name …
Just don’t call it “soft.”
Different Tim, I’m sure you know not to inhale before you take your first drink! Don’t know how many times I’ve had a coughing fit as a kid. We didn’t have Vernor’s very often, so I forgot each time!!
I sure miss those tall 16 once bottles of Frosty Root Beer they used to sell when I was a kid. We’d play baseball during the summer until it got so hot we had to take a break. We’d take off on our bicycles and ride the neighborhood streets looking in the ditches for empty coke bottles. You didn’t have to ride too long because people would toss them in the ditches from their cars knowing us kids would pick them up. They were worth 2 cents apiece at the neighborhood store, VJ’s Foody Doody. Five bottles was worth a dime and that’s what a bottle of coke (meaning any bottled carbonated drink) cost back then. We’d drink them on the benches in front of the store so we wouldn’t have to pay the additional 2 cents for the bottle. When finished, we’d just bring it back into the store and put it in the empty bottle rack. Then we’d all go sit under a huge shade tree and wait until it got cool enough to continue our baseball game. Good times!
Hambone said Doody
If you remember Soupy Sales, native of WV, he called it Cocola, which sounds more right than coke.
I must be a geezer because I remember watching Soupy sales as a kid back in the 60’s. And why is smashing a pie, preferably a cream pie into someone’s face still funny?
Artificially flavored tooth and bone demineralizer.
I’ll have a Tab.