Actually, I should probably edit that to “old-timey” rather than a “kids term,” although it does have some aspect of the latter when I hear it.
I grew up in western Pennsylvania saying “pop” like everyone else. Then I lived in eastern Pennsylvania for four years and totally converted to soda. Moved back to western Pennsylvania and gradually shifted back, though I use either.
My friend married a woman, originally from the east coast, who was very overbearing. She got angry with him when he called soft drinks ‘pop’ and insisted he say ‘soda’, even though she was the transplant to Michigan. Ten years after they got divorced he was still saying ‘soda’, so I finally had to do an intervention and say, come on man, you’re a Michigander, born and raised. The word is POP. I did allow that he could say ‘soda pop’ as a transitional word until he got used to ‘pop’ again.
I agree. Without citations, I’m not going to trust a user-written site. It could just be people who made the same assumption I did as a kid, and no one has fact-checked them.
What I’d love to see is chart of “soda pop” usage and seeing if it predates them being used alone for the beverages. But since both soda and pop have alternative meanings, I’m not sure how to look that up.
A chart showing where people actually use “soda pop” rather than either one alone might be suggestive of the answer, especially if you can get them from different times in history and compare.
Sodapop is Ponyboy’s brother, right?
Up North and Duck Duck Grey Duck (a FAR superior game) have been mentioned as Minnesotaisms (we are also a pop not soda state, though I think that’s changing) but I didn’t see “hotdish” What the rest of the country calls a casserole, we call a hotdish, and its an art form. (The dish you bake it in is often called a casserole, but what you bake is a hotdish) Tater tot hotdish is the epitome of Minnesota food.
In New Jersey you go “down the shore.” Once you are down the shore one of the activities you can do is go to the beach but that’s not what you call going to the area.
There is a pretty clear border between those that call the wonderful meat product pork roll and those that call it Taylor ham. It’s barely known outside of the state.
When I was in the Girl Scouts, we referred to them as “lats” (short for latrines).
I never saw the term KYBO used for anything but an Iowan porta-potty until I Googled it to see if the company still existed, and saw all the Boy Scout references to it.
In southeastern Wisconsin, use of the term soda water for carbonated non-alcoholic beverages like colas and root beer and the like is quite common.
Interesting. I think of “soda water” as plain carbonated water, no flavorings (other than possibly minerals naturally in the water.) Though more commonly in my family we called it “seltzer”.
My friend in Merrill, Wisconsin, calls tater tot casserole hot dish. Just plain hot dish.
Same. “Soda water” = non-flavored seltzer.
Pretty sure “waiting on” for “waiting for” is a long-established British usage. It’s not just the Rolling Stones song; I often hear it from Brits and other Commonwealthers.
More on “on”: I’m a chess player, and it’s typical to talk about one’s tournament score in terms of + or -. So if you’ve won four and lost one of your first five, you might say “I’m plus three”. But if you say “I’m on plus three” in an American accent, I might ask whether that is prescription or over the counter.
The “on line” vs.“in line” thing is complicated, and was so even before the internet and inline skating. I’d say that a group is standing in line, which I might get on. It’s not in my power, though, to stand “in line”; that requires the whole group’s cooperation. Oh, I am from New York.
My grandmother, from the Boston area, called carbonated beverages “tonic”, no matter what flavor.
Speaking of Britishisms, I noticed about 20 or so years ago the phrase “gone missing” or “went missing” start showing up in the news and crime dramas. As in “person x has gone missing” or “person y went missing 48 hours ago”. When I first started hearing it I thought it sounded odd, and kind of assumed it was lately adopted From across the pond.
The “junior high” to “middle school” transition started in the early ’70s, but according to [this article](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19404476.2016.1165036#:~:text=For%20the%20middle%20school%20movement,of%20this%20decade%20(Lounsbury%2C%201980), the emergent conversion was spotty across the nation.
I was in the first class of our town to go to the newly-built “middle school.” But the school wasn’t ready for occupancy until January of my 7th grade. The first semester of my 7th grade was spent in our high school. But due to student over-population, our class was split into morning and afternoon sessions.
I was pissed to be placed into the AM session. I had to walk miles in pitch dark to reach the high school, and we didn’t have access to the cafeteria—they kicked us out before it opened for the upperclassmen 
. But, it was nice to be home in time to enjoy hours of outdoor daylight time, while the PM droogs suffered in school till dinnertime. 
When I started high school in 9th grade, an “Alternative” school was started in my old kindergarten building. With parent’s permission, we had the option to attend this new school. I wanted to go to A-school; it was closer to me than the high school, and all the cool kids (and teachers) seemed to be matriculating there. Although I considered myself a “cool kid”, nobody else did, including my parents. They did not grant me permission to go.
The longing intensified when I saw a newspaper photo-shoot of this new A-school. Teachers and students all looked like long-haired hippies and most classes were held outdoors. We non-A-schoolers just knew they were smoking weed all day and taking classes like Flower Appreciation and Contemplating Your Bellybutton. Man, I really wanted to go there!
I grew up in South Jersey. We didn’t “go to the beach”, we went “down the shore.” This term was used even by those of us who had to travel north-east to reach the beach.
At least where I was (SoCal) it happened about then.
“Junior high” at least around there traditionally was 2 grades: 7 & 8.
To cope with an upcoming bulge in kids, and the relative spaciousness of JH campuses versus elementary campuses that had already been repeatedly expanded to bursting, they transferred 6th grade from the elementary schools into the JHs. And renamed them “middle schools” at the same time.
I was in the first class of 6th graders in what became our “middle school”. So that prior year the top two grades of our elementary school had their kiddie graduation.
You can include Cape Town in the lower RH corner of that map, it’s a common construction here (where the influence is Afrikaans not German)
Whoa. Not a fellow Absegamite, by any chance?
No, a bit closer to Philly.