Curzon says soda! Younghusband says pop! Chirol says coke! But why?
Strange Maps has a fascinating post that draws the borders of America’s linguistic landscape concerning the vital question of how a person orders a carbonated beverage. Look at the clean cut that runs through New York, Pennsylvania and into the Virginias, the border between Arizona and Utah, . The breakdown in brief:
* – Coke predominates throughout the South to the southwest, up to central Indiana and in a few other single counties scattered across the northwest. Coke derives from Coca-Cola, the brand-name of the soft drink, which was originally manufactured in Atlanta and which is likely the reason its use as a generic term for all soft drinks in the South.
* – Pop dominates the Northwest, Great Plains and Midwest. The world pop was introduced by Robert Southey, the British Poet Laureate (1774-1843), who wrote in 1812: “A new manufactory of a nectar, between soda-water and ginger-beer, and called pop, because ‘pop goes the cork’ when it is drawn.”
* – Soda is prevalent in the Northeast, greater Miami, greater St Louis, southern California and Arizona, and Hawaii. Soda derives from soda-water (also called club soda, carbonated or sparkling water or seltzer), produced by dissolving carbon dioxide gas in plain water, a procedure developed by Joseph Priestly in the latter half of the 18th century. The fizziness of soda-water caused the term ‘soda’ to be associated with later, similarly carbonated soft drinks.
Other, lesser-used terms include ‘dope’ in the Carolinas (the northern border of the usage of “Coke” in the old South) and ‘tonic’ in and around Boston, both fading in popularity. No word on how this map spreads into Canada, but Younghusband, born and raised in Canada’s far west, uses “pop” — and if this map is followed to its logical regional trends, we would assume that most of Canada uses that term.
All this juicy information comes from the always awesome geography trivia site Strange Maps — now celebrating 10 million hits. Congrats to the author for maintaining such an awesome blog.
The strange map that perhaps would most interest Coming Anarchy readers is the split between Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia still visible in Poland’s electoral map [1,2]
[1] http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/348-an-imperial-palimpsest-on-polands-electoral-map/
[2] http://catholicgauze.blogspot.com/2008/12/czarists-v-kaiserites.html
I recall seeing “pop” on the menu at a restaurant in Ontario during my only trip (so far) to Canada, so it must be a cross-country phenomenon, as the map implies. (Quebec and possibly the maritime provinces excluded, of course.)
Note that Pepsi is also a Southern creation — hailing from North Carolina, where the term “coke” is regularly used in its generic sense. Perhaps it can be chalked up to better marketing by Coke in the early years.
Well, Coca Cola is based on Atlanta, Georgia. It’s hardly a Northern drink.
Be sure you check out http://wwww.popvssoda.com. There you can find stats on a state by state basis of some ‘other’ responses taken during this study like “tarzan slam”, “canned beverage”, “carbonated water with artificial or natural flavoring” and “chittychitty bang bang”. Good for a laugh.
Canadians tend to use “soft drink”.
Is “soft drink” used to refer specifically to carbonated beverages, or to any non-alcoholic sugary drink? (I know technically it’s any non-alcoholic drink, but what weirdo calls milk a soft drink?)
That’s odd. Most of my state (Colorado) calls it pop, but my home county calls it soda (or ‘sodee pop’, as one co-worker puts it).
Another set of strange- and grim- maps were discussed at bldgblog recently: Google Map mashups showing the effects of different sizes of nuclear weapons on different cities:(
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/nuclear-urbanism.html
In south Texas we also use soda water when referring to carbonated beverages, not just tonic or seltzer type drinks
In Wisconsin, Pop dominates, except in the Greater Milwaukee area. Of course we in Milwaukee also drink from “bubblers” (not “water fountains”).
We new-englanders don’t say “soda” or “tonic.” We say “soder.”