COKE in the South

[Dennis R. Preston]

In the early days of the introduction of tooth-destroying US
sofdranks into then-Communist Eastern Europe, Coke carved out a place
for itself in Warsaw, but Krakow went for Pepsi. (Poznan also had
Coke, but I'm not sure of the rest of the national distribution;
seems to me that Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot was also Coke territory.)

Since they were "Western," these sofdranks had a much higher status
than in the US. If you asked for one in even a pretty fancy place, it
was not brought in a chilled glass (with throat-destroying ice,
according to local belief), but the bottle itself was prominently
displayed on the table, so that envious nearby diners could se what a
high-roller you were. (Much more clout than a bottle of Russian
champagne, delicious but cheap - and, of course, from the BAD PLACE!)

In those days in Krakow, however, where I had on occasion to order
for others, I asked for a "Coke" (I actually said "Coca-Cola") and
was served Pepsi without hesitation, often by a waiter in a tux, and
once with the bottle lovingly wrapped in a white napkin. I shoulda
asked what year it was.

What other evidence do we have of non-US use of Coke (or Coca-Cola)
as a generic?

dInIs


>From:    RonButters at AOL.COM
>: In a message dated 3/2/05 9:46:09 PM, stalker at MSU.EDU writes:
>
>:: I like this. Southerners, who use Coke generically,(note those
>:: non-restrictive clause commas) are aware of the legal sense of the
>:: term and are rejecting it. Does this correlate with the "save your
>:: Dixie cups; the South will rise again syndrome?
>
><snip>
>
>: JIm's nonrestrictive clause commas are wrong, but it would be
>: difficult to maintain that the shorthand use of "cokes" by SOME
>: Southerners sometimes borders on the generic. In my experience after
>: living nearly 40 years in North Carolina (I haven't checked this
>: against any empirical data), there are SOME people who use
>: "cokes" (almost always in the plural) to refer to soft drinks
>: in general, though they are fading out in areas where the large number
>: of immigrants from the North are often confused by such utterances as,
>: "What kind of cokes do y'all have?" Most frequently, it seems to me,
>: there use is plural.
>
><snip for bandwidth>
>
>: ...Sometimes words do indeed undergo what the
>: lawyers call GENERICIDE, and maybe COKE has done this for some
>: people: COKE(S) may have some kind of double-meaning for some people,
>: i.e., a dictionary that properly describes COKE for some Southerners
>: might should have entry #1 for the trademark status and #2 for the
>: generic use. But such people are a decided minority in the US, and I
>: suspect that they are dying out in the face of dialect mixture and,
>: of course, modern advertising...
>
>Agreed that the nonrestrictive clause bit was wrong (very wrong, in fact,
>IMObservation), but, that said...
>
>I'm not so sure that the use of COKE you discuss is dying out, since *i*'m
>one of these people (with a meaning #1 for COKE [note the singular!] of
>'Coca-Cola' and a meaning #2 of 'sweetened carbonated beverage'), and i'm
>only 34. I'm from Southern Maryland, pretty much as far north as you can get
>and still hear (semi-?)generic COKE (yes, that's COKE in the singular), and
>in my fieldwork there, you get occasional COKE as a generic from respondents
>of all ages.
>
>It might be worthwhile looking at the possible parallel of PEPSI as,
>perhaps, a generic for sweetened carbonated beverages in parts of Idaho and
>(i think) Montana, and maybe elsewhere.
>
><snip>
>
>David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
>     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
>     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
>     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
        Asian and African Languages
Wells Hall A-740
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office: (517) 353-0740
Fax: (517) 432-2736