December 21, 2004
Drink This
I've seen this kind of thing before, but never in this much detail: A county-by-county map of preferred soft drink terms. Pretty interesting. I'm guessing that some of the data are a bit skewed, however. I grew up in Texas. Like most people there, I say "Coke". But I noticed one county way down in the Rio Grande Valley that is listed as going 30%-50% "pop". That's a fluke and I'd bet that it resulted from a very small survey sample.
Speaking of such things, I suddenly remembered an old Shasta jingle from (I think) the 80's the other day:
Don't gimme that so-so-soda,
that same ol' cola
I wanna rock-n-rolla.
I wanna pow-pow-pow,
I wanna...Ssshasta!
Anyone else remember that? I always thought it was kinda catchy.
Yips! to The Colossus.
People in Brenham, TX say, "Soda-water." Strangest thing.
Posted by: Beck at December 21, 2004 10:11 AMI question the map's accuracy. Growing up in Douglas County, Oregon, I recall it was "Coke". Regardless of flavor or brand. But maybe that was my little town or family. Pop seems prevalent in the state, though we're less hard-core about insisting on it than other places, to the point of interchangeability.
Other than that, it is an interesting map.
Posted by: Brian B at December 21, 2004 02:59 PM
Eastern Massachusetts has the peculiarity of referring to soda, pop, coke, et al., as "Tonic".
We who are west of Rt. 495 know that tonic is a clear substance best mixed with Bombay Sapphire (The Official Gin of the Colossus).
Posted by: The Colossus at December 21, 2004 04:19 PMI'm right with you on the Bombay, but those tee vee commercials they've been running lately are weirding me out.
Posted by: Robert the LB at December 21, 2004 04:28 PMIf you like this sort of thing, check out this website. Hours of meaningless amusement in store.
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/index.html
It's called Coke. Period.
Posted by: Jeremy at December 21, 2004 05:24 PMGin? Yuck. Tastes like christmas tree stand water. Give me a good single malt Scotch.
Posted by: Brian B at December 21, 2004 07:44 PMWhen they first sold coke in china i understand the first moniker was chineese for BITE THE WAX TADPOLE(ugh)but the rewrote it to read YOUR MOUTH REJOYCES much better
Posted by: night heron at December 23, 2004 09:05 PM
