what do you drink?

[Peter A. McGraw]

--On Friday, August 23, 2002 12:58 PM -0400 sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
wrote:

> This one has been around the block a few times, but usually when I join in
> a thread dies, so maybe I can bring this one to a halt.

You're obviously forgetting that threads about food tend to go on forever.
And when you add nostalgia, well...

> I think there is also a generational element in the pop/soda divide.  When
> I was a kid (in Nebraska in the '30s), learning about these things, "pop"
> came in glass bottles. "Sodas" in a general way were ice cream sodas
> concocted in front of the customer at a soda fountain. One could also get
> fountain drinks that were more or less the same as pop but mixed from
> syrup & "soda water"  from the fountain spigot, served in glasses. With
> the addition of a scoop of ice cream, these were "floats."
> Coke could also be made at the fountain.

I've always said "pop" for Coke, Pepsi, etc., and grew up using "soda" to
refer only to the "soda fountain" product Alison describes.  However, that
was always "a soda" (or "an ice cream soda"), never just "soda" or "some
soda," which would have paralleled my usage of "pop."  I'm curious what
those in "soda" = 'pop' country called the soda fountain product made with
ice cream.  For that matter, did they get it at a "soda fountain," or was
that institution called something else back east?

It seems to me I recall a reference on this list some time ago to a
publication on soda fountain jargon.  Does anybody remember this, or am I
making it up?

Peter

****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu