what do you drink?

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:16 AM -0700 8/23/02, Peter A. McGraw wrote:
>
>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?

I was in soda country in NYC growing up in the 50's until arriving at
Rochester as an undergraduate, where I never converted but was
suddenly surrounded by pop.  We used "soda fountain" or "ice cream
shop" interchangeably, as I recall (in NYC).  Ice cream sodas were
ice cream soda, and sodas (e.g. coke) were sodas.  No problem.  We
probably even referred to ice cream sodas as "sodas" when the context
made it clear.  ("I'll have a strawberry soda with one scoop each of
chocolate and butter pecan" or whatever.)  I suppose if we were
introspective we'd have figured they were both called soda because
they were both made with soda water, a technical term for what we
usually called seltzer or vichy.

larry