Soda/pop

Carolyn Sturgeon jane515 at HOTMAIL.COM
Fri Apr 21 18:33:47 UTC 2000


Weighing in on the soda/pop/Coke question...


>I just checked with my undergrad American English class this morning, and
>found solid support for "soda" in Arizona. Several related stories of
>being regarded peculiarly after moving from the midwest using "pop". None
>had ever heard "soda pop".
>         Query: are there any online current dictionaries of slang?
>
>         Rudy


Good idea, Rudy, but we're off school today, so I can't ask my students, but
I grew up in suburban NJ in the 50s and 60s calling it soda pop.  A soda was
a flavored drink with a scoop of ice cream in it. A Brown Cow (chocolate and
coffee) was my favorite soda. My 15 year old daughter, a native West
Virginian, and her friends call the potable soda.  Coke was cola except when
I visited my great aunts in Richmond, Virginia, when coke was soda pop.

I do have a number of slang, Americanisms, usage books and finally found one
reference in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English by Kenneth G.
Wilson:  soda, club soda, pop, seltzer, soda pop, soft drink(s), sparkling
water, tonic all are lumped together and defined as "All these are names for
nonalcoholic beverages, usually carbonated so as to fizz, bubble, or
'sparkle.'  The general terms are soft drinks (as distinquished from 'hard'
[alcoholic] drinks), soda, pop, and soda pop (although soda is also a
clipped name for ice cream soda, a combination of ice cream, flavoring, and
carbonated water..."

Carolyn



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