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| Graphic courtesy of USA Today |
I found this online the other day and was fascinated by it. I've always been intrigued about the differences in regional words and phrases. For example, down here in the Southern US we say Y'ALL to mean you all, even though it's grammatically incorrect. So when I saw this, I thought I would share it.
It's a map showing how the majority of people in each of the counties of the United States describe the ubiquitous fizzy carbonated beverage we seem to love so much. For those of you in other parts of the world, here in the US we use the words "Soda", "Pop", or just a generic "Coke" to describe them and it's pretty much based on where you live or grew up.
So, in this chart, when people want a soft drink, this is what they told researchers they say. The red tones are where most people say "give me a Coke". Coke can mean Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper or whatever. Strange I know, it's just what we say. The blue tones are where people say "give me a pop", probably a shortened form of soda pop. Speaking of, the yellowish tones are where the majority of people just say "give me a soda". The greens and purple are "other" and I'm not sure what that is, ha. You can see that it's kind of a North/South thing for the most part. I wonder, are there differences in other parts of the world as well?
What do YOU say wherever you are?
Do share below...
Just a coke here in north wales
ReplyDeletea 'coke'....yep, that's me here, "I'll take a coke" which means, diet, pepsi, dr. pepper, sprite, whatever, ha.
DeleteSouth Africa: Cooldrink or fizzy drink
ReplyDeleteI like that! cooldrink....
Deletealways fizzy pop or pop over here in England!
ReplyDeletefizzy pop? I like that too! Funny that here in the states we have just a few, pop, soda, coke, but there are so many other options used elsewhere. Thanks!!
DeleteHaha this is great! My boyfriend is from Texas but we currently live in south Dakota every time we go places he asks for a coke and he always complains when they hand him a coke... its pop here! But we are moving to south of Houston he'll be able to stop complaining soon enough :)
ReplyDeleteNow that's funny! Yes, if y'all (get used to THAT word too, ha) are moving this direction, it will be 'coke', LOL.
DeleteI grew up in MI so called it pop, after I moved to TX I just could not call it Coke unless it really was, so I call it soda. Or preferably Dr. Pepper!
ReplyDeleteI noticed now that I think about it, I occasionally say 'soft drink'. Mmmm, dr. pepper is delicious.
Deletesoda or pop here in Ohio
ReplyDeletesoda OR pop? Or do you ever say soda pop??
DeleteI grew up saying "pop" in the Midwest. Changed to soda when I moved to the East Coast. Now, that I'm living in Turkey, Cola means coke, pepsi, fanta, etc. while Soda means sparkling water. Oh, how I do miss Dr. Pepper!
ReplyDeletenow that's fascinating! cola for the fizzy drinks and then soda for fizzy water? Cool.
DeleteI'm sorry about you missing Dr. Pepper. It's one of my faves too. They don't have those there? I kind of thought it might be ubiquitous like cokes and pepsi....Thanks for stopping by!!!
I'm from North Dakota. We usually ask for "pop". I get a kick out of the one yellow box (county) in our state. I don't think they call it any differently than the rest of the state. LOL
ReplyDeleteLorraine
Yeah, stats it's probably the one person in that county that answered the survey phone call, ha.
DeleteI grew up with "other"...we called it tonic. Yet the map says "soda." Actually, the map says otherwise about another place where I lived for 7 years (I learned to say "soda" but the map says "pop"). Statistics.
ReplyDeleteTrue true. I think it's probably more interesting as an overall regional difference. Is does seem to be a kind of north/south thing generally speaking but there are probably stats that make that different too, LOL! :-)
DeleteSoda where I grew up in NY. Pop out here in Oregon. I am also very interested in linguistics and regional influences. I would suspect that America will lose many of these regional vocabularies since most people are mobile and rarely live in one region during their lifetime. Even those who live in remote/isolated areas in the Country have changed their speech because of the media's influence. I saw a piece on the evening news last week about how it is becoming difficult to find anyone living in Texas with the sterotypical Texas drawl. Many linguistic depts. at colleges/Univeristies are racing to record regional accents/language before they no longer exists.
ReplyDeleteWow, I'll have to look for that news piece. You know, it's true, I don't hear the true "Texas drawl" much anymore. And media does have a huge influence. That's fascinating. It would be sad to lose those regional vocabularies. They truly are so unique to America. Thanks for sharing this!!
DeleteI grew up in England in the 50s and 60s. We called any drink that was carbonated 'mineral'. Can I have a glass of mineral? Moved to Canada in the late 60s and it is called 'pop' here.
ReplyDeleteA glass of mineral? That's neat as well! I wonder if that's still common or if that's fallen out of use??
DeleteDefinite ' Soda' in AZ. :)
ReplyDeleteSoda huh? Well that fits the map at least! Although where you are staying now is sort of mixed use words huh? LOL!
DeleteHere in Australia it's either soft-drink or fizzy-drink. Usually soft-drink is used by adults and kids tend to say fizzy-drink!
ReplyDeleteThis Idaho gal remembers telling a friend from Boston that I wanted a "pop". He informed me (and you have to pronounce this so the "a" sounds like in "as") "You want a soda....your pap is your fatha" After that, I just started calling it "a coke".
ReplyDeleteGlasgow, Scotland - if you have a broad accent, it's 'Ginger' (yes, really!). Otherwise, fizzy juice or fizzy drinks.
ReplyDeleteIn Edgecombe county, North Carolina, we call carbonated beverages "drinks." The funny thing is that we pronounce it as "dranks" as in "Let's go by the store and get some dranks." To eliminate the confusion, hard liquor is referred to as "a drank o' liquor." On the above map, we are the diamond shaped county in eastern North Carolina.
ReplyDelete