Term used Pop or Soda?

[JDX4]

I was born, raised and still live in Connecticut and I say "soda."

 

[sunshinehighway]

It was always tonic here in New England

My kids generation all call it soda though and without the Boston accent

The world is getting smaller

My nana always said tonic. Now we all say soda or the specific name of the drink, coke, sprite, orange dry, etc. Maybe I should start saying tonic and try to bring it back.

 

[ugadog99]

I'm from Georgia, it's all Coke. My granddaddy drove for Coca Cola, so really it is all Coke for us.

 

[Jennasis]

Born and raised on Long Island and now living in NC (for the past 9 years).

It's SODA for me.

 

[ArmyWife7]

We say "coke" regardless of the brand.

 

[happygirl]

Both

 

[stevenpensacola]

Slightly off topic, but, when I was a kid, and we'd be heading home from being out of town visiting grandparents...my dad would say something along the lines of "we're almost back to Pepsicola..."

See...we lived in Pensacola but my dad would say Peps...well it was funny at the time...and I still remember it 45 years later.

 

[CentralFloridian99]

I say soda. Your supposed to give someone a pop when they steal your soda.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

In Pennsylvania:

Soda: Any carbonated, flavored beverage

Soda Water/Seltzer/Tonic: What you mix with gin.

Pop: What you call your grandfather.

Coke: Actual Coca-Cola

 

[Candace]

We say "coke" regardless of the brand.

Ha, Ha! I was just about to post that here in the mid-south we call everything "coke"!

 

[jc040404]

I grew up saying pop in Ohio, but now say soda. DH is from CT and no one down here says pop either. After being picked on (in fun!) enough, I had to make the change! Pop just sounds silly to me now. Oddly, the few I've met around here that use pop have been from Ohio!

 

[Costumesaremylife]

Tonic, with family.

Soda, with general public.

There's a bar I go to for trivia night, and on the receipt it says tonic.

 

[abdmom]

Pop.

Here's the geographic distribution by which you can plainly see that most people in North America agree with me.

http://popvssoda.com/

 

[minniecarousel]

When you hear it referred to as "pop" around here, you know they're not from here.

 

[North of Mouse]

In south LA where I grew up it was mostly "soft drink", but sometimes just plain "coke" for anything

 

[Starclassic]

We say soda.

 

[nalem]

I used pop sometimes soda.

 

[NotUrsula]

Soda has ice cream in it, thus, it is pop.

OK, now, THIS made me laugh.

Where I come from, a carbonated soft drink is a coke; then you can specify what flavor (you know, real Coke, diet, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, etc.)

I would never think "ice cream soda" if someone mentioned soda. To me, "soda" is soda water, the sort that some people mix with Scotch. (I had a frightening vision of a mixture of Scotch and ice cream for a second there.) IME, the actual ice cream soda is essentially extinct. I have not once been in an ice cream shop that served them since about 1965, and I'm very into ice cream.

Older people do say soda (or so much worse, "sod-ee") where I now live in the midwest; younger people tend to say "soft drink" if they are speaking generically.

 

[aubriee]

Here, it is coke. "What kind of coke do you want?"

 

[cornflake]

Here, it is coke. "What kind of coke do you want?"

This is what I do not understand about the 'coke for everything' people.

I'm from the land of soda and people don't order like that here, because it's just mildly masochistic, or sadistic, or both I suppose, depending on one's pov.

'I'll have a coke.'

'What kind?'

'A Sprite.'

Why not just order a sprite?

I've never heard anyone say, 'I'll have a soda,' to waitstaff, to which waitstaff would theoretically then say 'what kind?' They just lead off with 'I'll have a Sprite,' or, if they're not sure if the place has whatever brand they want 'do you have Sprite?'

Why make it into a two-step process?

People don't do that with much of anything else except dessert, either, and that's usually only because they don't know what the dessert offerings are, hence 'we're thinking about dessert' or whatever, if the conversation isn't initiated by the server, 'would you like to hear our dessert offerings?'

But no one says 'I'll have a cocktail,' and waits for 'what kind?' 'a mojito.'

People don't say, 'I'll have an entree.' They just order.

I really don't understand where the 'coke.... which one...' thing came from or why it originated and why it perseveres. Any etymology experts?