"soda" in Minneapolis

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 11:49 PM 8/8/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Here's something I find strange:  when I slip up and say
>"stringbeans" rather than "green beans," I'm understood.
"Stringbeans" was the common term when I was growing up in Minnesota (40s
and 50s).  "Green beans" is the Midland term, but it's obviously spreading
with commercial canning, etc.  Nonetheless, the older regional term will
continue to be familiar for a while yet.  "Soda" is spreading commercially
too, and perhaps "sophisticated" Minneapolitans have picked up on it; but
it's not the general term in Minnesota.  Interestingly, I switched from
"pop" to "soda" when I lived in St. Louis in the 60s and then back to "pop"
in southern Indiana (Blgtn) and southern Ohio.  The combination "soda pop"
is more narrowly South Midland; it appears in novels of Appalachia
(Giardina, Smith, et al.).  My father's cousins in southern Illinois (in
the urban Edwardsville/Collinsville area but of coal mining stock) said
"sody pop"--following a pattern common in AppEng.