Saturday, May 12, 2007

Pop/Soda/Coke

Check out this awesome map breaking down what people call carbonated sweetened beverages, by county:



You can click to go to the web page, but in the meantime:

- Yellow is Soda.
- Blue is Pop.
- Red is Coke.

It is abundantly stupid that any part of the country calls it "Coke." That's right, most of the South: I'm calling you out.

Coke, in case you haven't noticed, is a specific type of product. Calling tissues "Kleenex" or a copy machine a "Xerox" isn't a huge problem, as Kleenex and Xerox don't indicate any particular type of thing (unless you work at Kleenex or Xerox).

Coke, on the other hand, indicates a brown, caramel based, caffeinated fizzy beverage made by the Coca-Cola Company. It does not, for example, indicate an orange soda. Or a Mountain Dew. Or a Pepsi.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"other"?

Nate Kushner said...

When I'm ordering it, I just call it, "Hey, waiter, just take out the rum this time, and I'll drink what's left."

Anonymous said...

In Australia, we called them 'fizzy drinks'.

Anything like 7UP or Sprite is called 'lemonade', popcicles are 'ice lollies' and flavored syrup is 'cordial'.

Poisonous snakes are called 'kitties' and deadly sharks are called 'puppies'.

Allen Strickland Williams said...

You yanks wouldn't understand our choice of vocabulary on this particular matter, but suffice it to say, we say Coke because we want Coke. Anything else would simply be a mistake, my dear boy, and I advise you to take heed.

Now back to my sugar cane/mint julep/Blue Collar Comedy Tour plantation.

Anonymous said...

I can tell you that they're right about Wisconsin; it is a house divided against itself. The Madison "pop"ers encroach more upon Milwaukee's soda-land daily.
SD