iapetus

No, no, no! Pepsi is one brand of coke. But Coke isn't a brand of Pepsi.

"Which kind of coke do you want?"

"A Pepsi."

Of course, Pepsi is not the cola of preference in that part of the country.

cblaisd

And preference for a Pepsi is liable to elicit "Ya'll aren't from around here, are ya?"

Starwood Lurker

No, not contradictory at all. iapetus has it right.

LOL. Hilarious.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

tonerman

Although I grew up in California, we always called soft drinks "coke"
It drove my parents crazy when at restaurants they would order Cokes for the kids and the staff would say " we only have Pepsi" My Dad's response "Same difference"

exerda

Sociolinguists and language historians trace all sorts of diagnostic word differences like this on maps, with lines (like isobars on weather maps) showing the loose boundaries--wish I could remember the term for those lines, but it's been a long time since I took those courses.

Other examples include things like sofa vs. couch vs. divan, sub vs. hero vs. hoagy vs. grinder etc., creek vs. stream vs. brook, and several others...

cblaisd

One of the least mall-ized and homogenized aspects of American culture and idiom is with funeral/death customs. They vary widely by region and by ethnicity and religious background.

E.g., do you go to the "viewing" or the "visitation"?

MarqFlyer

Where I come from, we just call them "lines."

Starwood Lurker

Neither. I go to the "wake".

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

cblaisd

Interesting.

Even for non-Catholics, is that the colloquial term?

Starwood Lurker

Not sure. My family background is Scotch/Irish with a little German thrown in for good measure. We have always called them wakes in our family and none of us are Roman Catholic.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

tonypct

Back to the soda, pop or coke discussion. Growing up in NYC, I often ordered a "soder." When I'm tired, that little r still occasionally sneaks into my vocab.

phillygold

I would order that too....but sometimes my Mom would make me drink warder...

SkeptiCallie

Isoglosses.

Did you have a course in linguistics/history of the English language? My doctoral minor was linguistics--though that sounds much too fancy a term for Old English, Middle English, and two semesters of "History of the English Language." (Must have had some other course relating to it but can't recall now.) Spiders, frying pans, skillets. . . . variant terms I yawned through all (and what I could recall, promptly forgot). Don't know how a poetry lover ever ended up in that group.

Mystified as to the OP's post that Coke is a generic term for soft drinks in the South, though undoubtedly there are pockets of variant terms throughout the region. But there are always going to be variants, and what sounds correct is "our" remembered terminology. I suppose I should go back to the link posted in post 1 and consult it. Anyhow, "my" sub-South or sub-sub-South says "soft drink," but then I never grew up with grits and others did, used to potatoes, others used to rice.

Dovster

I never drank warder with a hero sandwich. I always had soder, except when I was in the Buffalo area, in which case I had pop with my sub sandwich or, in Philly, when I ordered soder with my hoagie.

daph

Interesting study. I've drunk Coke all my life [from age 4?]. I grew up in a US Middle Atlantic state and we called it Coke, perhaps because we were fairly near the South, where Coke was invented. Here in California they often refer to it as "soda". I get very annoyed when a restaurant tries to pass off a generic "cola" or a Pepsi as a Coke. I took the blindfold Coke vs. Pepsi at the Fair once and impressive my children. We all have our talents! I love that BA and American serve Coke. Though I enjoy United and their Channel 9 I'd prefer to have them serve Coke not Pepsi. Why did Coke and Pepsi decide to make us have to choose between them? Does it really help their sales so much?