Soda vs. Pop: explanations

what's going on around St. Louis and Milwaukee?

Lots and lots of Germans, who had a largely separate and distinct, German-language culture up until US entry into WWI. I don't know if that explains the preference for "soda" (Cincinnati, after all, is a "pop" town, and had the same kind of thriving German culture), but it does account for all kinds of regional linguistic quirks.

The lighter colors in the Boston area and southeastern NH are probably due to those who use the old term "tonic."

The most interesting part to me is the confetti around mid-Atlantic Appalachia...

I wonder if the "confetti" pattern of the southeast (from VA to FL) might be due to the southward migration of us Appalachian transplants and "rust belt" folks. I know I have made it my personal mission in life to "pop-ify" the southern states. :)

In Colombia I heard "gasioso". In Venezuela the word was "refresca".

In Ireland they say "Mineral", from the old fashioned "Mineral Water"

The most interesting part to me is the confetti around mid-Atlantic Appalachia...

interesting how eastern kentucky is with west virgina. i know eastern kentucky and tennessee had unionist sentiment in the predominantly anti-union south....

i was going to say the german thing too, but I can't think of a mechanism

Growing up in central and southern California, I never heard it referred to as anything but "soda pop."

I'd love to see this in finer resolution. I come from Rochester, NY, solidly in the dark blue. But I'd never heard anyone actually say anything but soda until probably HS or college.

-Kevin

Even with the few data point, I am still interested in how pop seems to rule in Canada, too.

In Colombia I heard "gasioso". In Venezuela the word was "refresca".

"Gaseosa" and "refresco" surely. In Spain "refresco" means any kind of soda drink, or even non-gaseous non-alcoholic beverages like juices or lemonade, while "gaseosa" is an specific type of soda (water, sugar and gas) in other time very popular. "Soda" is a non sugary carbonated water added to some liquors like Martini in some traditional taverns and "tónica" is a bitter soda drink, mostly but not necesarily of the Schwepps trademark.

Why do I use "soda" in English? Because that's how I learn't it in Virginia. I was unaware of other terms as my host county is dark yellow in that map (in this case it seems correct).

In NZ it's fizzy drink or lolly water...

Interesting how pop/coke lines up with north/south except in the NE and SW

The most interesting part to me is the confetti around mid-Atlantic Appalachia...

I live in that region (Charlotte). The most "confetti-like" region isn't so much the Appalachians as it is the Piedmont and coastal areas (remember the mountains extend just as much into Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky as in NC and Virginia).

I think the mess is largely due to the fact that natives of this region generally say "coke" but there's a large influx of northerners who say "soda."

I'm not sure what the "others" might be, unless it's specific local brands like Cheerwine.

Growing up in central and southern California, I never heard it referred to as anything but "soda pop."
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I grew up in the SF Bay Area and went to school in Los Angeles. Soda pop is how I generally heard it as well. If shortened though, as the map suggests, it was usually to soda.

The Canadian/Michigan "pop" thing probably comes from the accent passed down from the French settlers - however, I can't remember what the word is in French anymore.

I was raised in and currently live in central NY (Utica). It was always "soda". "Pop" was considered to be a western NY thing. The dividing line is pretty obvious to me on the map (between Syracuse and Rochester). My wife grew up in western NY along Lake Ontario, closer to Buffalo than Rochester, and "pop" was the term to use.

Obviously Canada is winning.

The Canadian/Michigan "pop" thing probably comes from the accent passed down from the French settlers

Nope.. Most of Canada wasn't settled by the French, and by the time either term came into existance it was even more Anglo. The most heavily French parts of the US also do not use "pop", and UK and descendents (Aus, NZ) use "pop" for the most part. "Pop" is much more closely linked with British English than with anything else.. the exact opposite of what you hypothesized.

Perhaps there is a connection to the early regional brands of soft-drinks. Prior to the national domination of Coke and Pepsi, small regional brands would have been available. For most people who had never heard of a carbonated drink these early brands would have influenced their choice of names. The area around St. Louis (or Milwaukee) could represent the distribution area of a popular brand that referred to itself as "something" soda. Thus the soda name became common. If one brand was successful then others would have copied the name to attract buyers. This does not explain the initial choice of name and may be contradictory with the other data. It would take finding out the old brand names and mapping their regions to see if it correlates with this map.

One question: WTF's going on with Alaska?

That lone island of yellow in Iowa seems to be the county for the University of Iowa, so I'm guessing it's a combination of out of state transplants and an effort by college educated folks to avoid using vocabulary they perceive as rustic (an effort I was instinctively drawn to even grade school while growing up in the state). Maybe something similar is going on with the other midwest patches of soda, colleges or urban areas drawing people from out of state, and the college and urban populations looking down their nose at their rural neighbors.

Milwaukee - we used soda, soda-pop and less pop when I grew up there. How was the question worded? I never felt we were different than the rest of the state though. Going to the Wisconsin Dells in the west of the state every summer I don't remember having to use pop or hearing more than soda or soda pop.

I wonder how this map would correlate with an overlay of other regional variances, like which syllable to stress in the word "insurance." In some areas people say "in-SUR-ance" and in others they say "IN-sur-ance" (with sur-ance in that instance usually being run together into one syllable so that it sounds more like "IN-shurnz"). Looking at this Coke/Pop/Soda map my guess is that people who say coke or pop would also (most likely) say "IN-sur-ance" while people who say soda or other would say "in-SUR-ance."

(e.g., what's going on around St. Louis and Milwaukee?)

St. Louis sucks, and the resulting gravity well has imploded several counties in all directions.

Interesting how pop/coke lines up with north/south except in the NE and SW

as if the southern half of the country were culturally or linguistically homogenous. the southwest isn't "the south" AT ALL. ask anyone who knows anything about the war of northern agression.

my hypothesis for all that red in my neck of the woods (no pun intended): perhaps our population, a disproportionate percentage of which is rural, impoverished, uneducated, or all three, is easier to "brand" than urban, solvent, or educated sectors.

or, you could argue that coke was first launched in the south (georgia) and mass-packaged in the south (mississippi), and so it's comfortable and familiar to us scotch-irish-descended territorial types.

OR, you could argue that, with our lazy southern tongues, "coke" is easier than the plosive "pop" or disyllabic "soda."

what i think is interesting is the tiny patch of bright, bright green in texas. i'm pretty sure that's houston.

Hey Wazza,

Where I grew up (in West Auckland - yikes!) we used "soft drink", rather than "fizzy drink".

Colin

St. Louis was historically an Eastern "colony" with lots of ties to the Northeast and less to the rest of the Midwest. The upper class sent their children to Ivy League schools and affected a "Connecticut/New York/Philadelphia" sort of style.

for what it's worth... growing up in the west of scotland, we called everything lemonade -- you had orange lemonade, and ginger lemonade, and cola lemonade, and lime lemonade (which tasted nothing like lime, and was a flourescent green color).

There were three 'soda's that were uniquely different and were never lemonade: Irn-Bru (Iron Brew) a rust colored 'tonic' type drink- popular as a 'hair of the dog'; vimto - a wierd sickly sweet fruity concoction; and cream soda (popular, I suppose, because of the presence of GI's and navy guys in the west-coast bases)

And not 30 miles away in Glasgow - all soda's were GINGER

What can I say - obviously an uncultured lot in the city!

Razib, interesting post! I often wonder about the soda/pop thing myself. If German cultural influences had something to do with this, though, I'd expect words like 'fizzwasser' or at least 'spritzer' to be more common in this context. (I agree, though, that German linguistic-cultural influences on American (but especially Midwestern) culture are deep, pervasive, and largely underappreciated.)

Fitzwater and Spitzer, on the other hand, are actual German-American (Jewish?) names. And Sodawaterwalla is a real Parsi name.

A truely amazing map that shows just one aspect of our cultural diversity.