what do you drink? and/or convenience store

[Millie Webb]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Wilton" <dave at WILTON.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 10:19 PM
Subject: Re: what do you drink?


> While I was back visiting the folks in NJ (Point Pleasant) last week, my
> sister-in-law ordered "soda water" in a restaurant. The waitress, about 20
> years of age and who by her accent and usage of "youse guys" was clearly a
> native, was thoroughly confused by this. My sister-in-law explained that
she
> meant "club soda" and all was fine. 20+ years ago when I was growing up
> there, confusion between soda/coke and soda water was far more likely than
> soda/coke and ice cream soda. Is "soda water" a fading term or was this
> waitress just an anomaly?
>

Soda water is definitiely fading.  I know the term, but only because my
parents and aunts/ucles, etc woudl say it (they are all in their 70's to
90's).

We called the "ice cream soda" type soda, either "ice cream sodas" or just
"sodas".  And when I was growing up in the seventies and eighties (well,
part of them I was under 21 anyway), EVERYONE said "pop" in Minnesota.
Apparently, some now say "soda", but not natives.

We just moved to Wisconsin from Michigan recently, and what shocked me in
Michigan was that EVERYONE called what I woudl have termed a "liquor store"
(or maybe a convenience store that selled alcohol) a "party store".  That
was weird.  Like, you had to get alcohol to call anything a "party", I
suppose.  Anyone I have heard say "party store" in the sense of
"alcholo-selling store" has spent at least five years living in Michigan.
Anyone else hear that elsewhere in the country?  I have mostly only lived up
in the Northern Midwest, or "Northern Tier States" as some have called
hem.  -- Millie

PS - Oops, one more thing.  Matt, the other lexical terms/pronunciations
that almost always elicit all sorts of vehemently emotional reactions to
people who say it "the other way" is the "coupon"/"kyupon" distinction.
Some people honestly have no idea which they say, and vary it in phonetic
context, or mainly, sentence or topic context.  The huge majority of people
know which they say and will react strongly in favor of the way they say it,
and make all kinds of degrading comments on the low life who say it the
other way.  Trust me, it was on my word list for my sociolinguistics
dissertation research interviews: "I know that of which I speak," on this
topic even if on no other.