COKE in the Maryland

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Coke" for soft drinkin general is alive and well in East Tennessee.  It is virtually the only word I hear for it.

The synonymous "dope," however, seems to be on the way out used anymore - perhaps for obvious reasons.

JL

RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
Subject: COKE in the Maryland
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In a message dated 3/4/05 9:33:04 AM, db.list at PMPKN.NET writes:


>
> 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.
>
Thanks, David, for the information and personal information. As for the
fieldwork, isn't "occasional" the operative word here? This would seem to me to
indicate that your "coke"-responding informants are (at most) like you, i.e.,
people who know that COKE is a brand name but also know that SOME people
SOMETIMES use it as a pseudogeneric, either as shorthand or because they have attached
a secondary meaning to it?

This is entirely anecdotal, but when I first moved to Durham, NC, 35+ years
ago, one heard "coke" for 'softdrink' much more frequently. Maybe "dying out"
was too strong; maybe "less robust" would be a better way of putting it (and
more in keeping with the jargon of the times).


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