Pop, soda or coke...?

Great Debates
41

As some of you know, I recently was uprooted from my home on the eastern seaboard to come and live in the Midwest. And I am sick, sick, sick of the word “pop.” Holy crap. It’s soda. That’s what it is. “Pop” is an onomotopeia (excuse the spelling…I’m feeling a little too lazy to open the dictionary today). Soda. So-da. I’m now trying a little behavior modification technique. Whenever somebody says the p-word, I act like I don’t understand until they refer to it by its correct nomenclature:
“I’m going to get a pop.”
“A what?”
“A pop?”
“What’s a pop?”
“A soda.”
“Oh…why didn’t you say so?”

I’ll straighten these people out yet.

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill

42

SOFT DRINK SOFT DRINK SOFT DRINK SOFT DRINK SOFT DRINK!!!

The only sane term.

43

COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE COKE!!!

Why be sane?

http://www.beginbids.com/ubb/smilies/icon25.gif

44

Rousseau write:

It baffles me that people have such a problem with pop.' Some people have strong, visceral reactions against the word which compell them to be assholes about it, as apparently it does for you. Personally, I think that if I can restrain myself from dressing down every weak-minded fuckabout with the poor taste to say dude’ in my presence, you can be more tollerant of `pop.’

45

I’m with neutron star. I never heard anyone use the term soft drink except on TV. Sure, it is on menus, signs, commmercials, etc., but I can’t picture someone saying, “While, you’re at the store, pick me up a soft drink.” Wow even typing it gave me the shivers…

I can accept it if it is only the Californians doing it, since, as every one knows, they’re all crazy anyway. Are there any other places that use this term?

BTW, I drink soda. For a while I lived in Buffalo, and there were a bunch of people drinking pop, but I didn’t know what that was, so I didn’t have any. If someone asked me what kind of coke I wanted, I would assume they meant classic, new, or cherry. (Does new still exist?)

PeeQueue

46

JohnnyAngel sez:

And so you should. I’ve never heard anyone from here (Chicago) use that term. Others who do get laughed at. It’s kind of the equivalent of Frisco.

47

this is too funny! it’s a little ironic that i (being an out lesbo) just spent an hour reading a debate about gay marriage, but i was compelled to make my first post on this board about the great pop/soda/coke/soft-drink debate.

(soft-drink.) (snort-snicker-guffaw!)

i have to side with the other chicagoans and say that pop is what it’s all about in the midwest. although…i did notice a strange phenomenon: i will differentiate between a soft-drink that comes in a can vs. a soft-drink that comes in a bottle (hey! are we getting into a class/genus/species thing here?)

anyway…if it’s in a can, it’s a can of pop. if it’s in a glass, it’s a glass of soda. so, theoretically, the same beverage can begin as one and end up as the other, if you pour it from the can into a glass.

and if it starts out in a bottle, it’s definitely pop. who ever heard of collecting soda bottles? duh.

48

Random wrote:

I have the impression that it’s a New Yorkism, but I have no actual evidence of that. But a couple of years ago when I surveyed BBSes, I got a lot of responses from people who said they were from Chicago and used the term. But I questioned them and found a lot of them were really transplanted from someplace else. But I couldn’t explain away all of them.

Furthermore, W. R. Burnett, a hard-boiled writer of the old school who has definite Chicago credentials has used the term at least once that I know of. But that may be because he was imitating other pulp writers.

So, I continue to insist that Chicagoans don’t call the place Chi-town.' Furthermore, there is no Greater Chicago Metropolitain Area,’ there is only `Chicagoland.’

49

SOFT DRINK!!!

I don’t care if all of the Midwest wants to call it “pop”. “Pop” is something that a balloon does when you stick a pin in it. It has nothing to do with a carbonated beverage.

Since it seems unanimous that the Midwest uses the term “pop” - so what? I have heard many Midwesterners say “I done this, I done that.” but that doesn’t mean I want to say it like that too. (Oh, I know - many Midwesterners have excellent grammar - far better than mine, I am sure. But this is a Great Debate, and this is a Serious Issue!!! ;)) “Pop” is the lamest term to use for a carbonated beverage. At least the term “soft drink” has been established as a legitimate term - hence the use of it in grocery stores and restaurant menus.

50

sorry, cali peeps…pop definitely makes more sense than soft-drink. consider:

carbonated beverages have lots and lots of bubbles. bubbles that ‘pop’ when they reach the surface.

‘soft-drink’ implies that the drink is actually ‘soft’, as opposed to ‘hard drinks’, which would be ‘hard’, and therefore impossible to drink. you’d have to chew them. thus, the term ‘soft-drink’ is redundant.

okay, i know that’s kind of weak, but the real reason they are called soft-drinks is to differentiate them from alcoholic drinks. so, if one were hosting a get-together, and wanted to indicate that alcohol would not be served, they would say they were having soft drinks. but that would include juice as well as carbonated POP.

to use ‘soft drink’ in place of ‘pop’ or ‘soda’ is to incorrectly apply a general term to a specific category (in much the same way that using ‘coke’ to mean all kinds of carbonated beverages is to incorrectly apply a specific term to a general category.)

therefore, if i say ‘do you want a soft-drink?’, one could rightly respond, ‘sure - do you have any juice?’ and then i could say, ‘no - sorry - i just have pop.’ (or if i lived in southern illinois or missouri, i could say, ‘nope, sorry - how about a sodie?’)

soft drink —>pop/soda—>coke/pepsi/7-up
|
|---->juice—>orange/grapefruit/apple
|
|---->kool-aid---->grape/lemon-lime/cherry
|
|---->etc…get it now? :Þ
and FINALLY, no matter what anyone says, ‘soft-drink’ just sounds so Donna Reed. or like something the butler would offer you.

bleh. so there!

(the only time i hear natives say chi-town is when we’re talking to out-of-towners…maybe we’re trying to speak in a language they will understand?)

51

Johnny Angel:

[Q]I don’t know anyone from Chicago who says soda.' Growing up in Chicago, everyone I knew called it pop.’ What neighborhood are you from?[/Q]

Marquette Park, and later the western suburbs (La Grange). We always called it soda. Only people from Indiana called it pop. :slight_smile:

52

Look, “pop” is hopelessly cheesy, “coke” is confusing and “soft drink” just seems too formal, so let’s just all agree to call it “sody water” (in our best old-timer voices, of course).

“Give me a cold sody water, there, sonny!”

53

This is odd. Just yesterday, a friend from Texas made fun of me for using the word “pop”. I lived in So. CA (Riverside) till I was five (formative years, vocabulary-wise) then moved to Seattle. West coast all the way. To me, “soda” is reasonable, if a little peculiar. If you ask for a coke, you get Coca-Cola, or at least some form of cola. “Soft Drink” is just bizarre. It’s like saying “tissues” for “Kleenex”. “Pop” is, and will always be the word of choice.

54

I agree, “soda” is less reprehensible than “pop”. Almost anything would be. “Soft drink” is not any more bizarre than “pop”. It may sound formal, but at least it doesn’t sound lame, hokey, cheesy, and if you use just the right accent, decidedly hick-esque.

I knew at the age of ten than “pop” was a horrid and wretched word used to describe soft drinks, and I still am as convinced of it. While I would never correct someone for using the term, I invariably cringe when I hear it. It is not unlike hearing fingernails down a blackboard.

55

I use the term pop even though I know some people who were not raised in the heartlands, and even a handful who were, are allergic to the term. It can cause convulsions, anaphylactic shock and other signs of not being about to get over it. A more congenial person than myself might just drop the word from his vocabulary, on the grounds that it’s not worth the social consequences of using it. Yet, I continue to use it as a shibboleth. It says to people, “I’m not one of you, and that’s the way I like it.”

56

You know, I don’t understand the “pop”= Midwestern or “hick-esque” association. I don’t see it that way at all. I’ve been doing some research, finding pages dedicated to the “soda/pop/soft drink” debate. It’s certainly not as simple as west/mid/east regional divisions. My father, who grew up in Kansas and California uses “soda”. Here in Seattle, pop is definitely the accepted term. It’s the same in B.C. and Oregon. I’ve never had any problem using the word “pop” in CA, though I haven’t consciously noticed which term was being used.

Soft drink just sounds too much like a radio commercial.

57

This cute little page has some amusing Chicagoisms. Pop isn’t among them, but I’ll bet some of you can think of other things that should be.

Chicago Slanguage

58

Coke is all that my friends and I ever drink (as far as “soda”, “pop”, or “soft drinks” go, anyway) so that’s all we ever ask for.

“Hey, you got any Coke?”
“You wanna Coke?”
“Damn, all I want is to sit down and have a cigarette and a Coke, is that so much to ask?”
“Jeez. We can’t ever come to this restaurant again. They don’t have Coke.”

No Coke, well…I’ll just have a cup of coffee, thanks.

“I like toast.” :slight_smile:

59

Well, if “pop” is not used primarily in the Midwest, then the “Midwest” association would obviously not be totally accurate. However, once you’ve heard enough people say “Ah think Ah’m gonna git me a pop” then yeah, you start to make the association with hick. Note, I did say that the accent had to be just right for the “hick” association to be there… I don’t ever think I’ve heard someone say “Ah think Ah’m gonna git me a soft drink” I can pretty much guarantee that such a statement will never be spontaniously uttered.

60

yosimitebabe wrote:

Well, that’s something you will never hear. “Pop” is not a term used in the South, Ah assure you. It’s all “coke” down here. (Though sometimes we use the more formal “soft drink”.) Like you, we mercilessly ridicule midwestern “pop” drinkers. :wink: