Friday, July 14, 2006

Cola wars

Ever since I was a wee lad, I and those around me have called carbonated beverages "pop." As soon as I learned to make requests for what to put in my bottle, I always asked for "pop." (Which made it simple for me as a baby, since I only had to change a single vowel and, voĆ­la! I could say what was likely in my diaper at any given time--so efficient!) I had never heard pop called anything else. The only time I ever heard reference to "soda" was as a shortened version of baking soda--and speaking from experience, you REALLY don't want to drink that stuff! I eventually learned that certain people "back East" called it "soda" but they were a strange lot and far away so you didn't need to worry about it. Imagine my surprise, then, when my future wife ordered a SODA at Outback Steakhouse! Here's me totally incredulous that this nice Utah girl was talkin' all high fallutin' like an East coast socialite and her aghast that this guy she was dating obviously just stepped off the tractor-drawn turnip cart from the Idaho sticks. Despite this point of friction, we still ended up getting married. It probably wouldn't have been an issue, but since we drink enough Diet Pepsi to have warranted our purchase of Pepsi stock in an attempt to make money off ourselves, the topic comes surprisingly often. I tend to try to interject "pop" in all our food orders whenever we're eating out, thinking that eventually Margaret will hear it enough times and turn from the dark side. So far no luck--she still just thinks I sound like a hick. Maybe I should start drinking it out of a quart Mason jar, just to spite her (hmm, not a bad idea--all our glasses only hold 12 ounces--I could eke out an additional 4 ounces drinking out of the jar!)


Anyway, here's an interesting map of a study done on this very topic. Every county in the US was sampled on whether they use the term "pop," "soda," "coke," or other. As it is plain to see, I grew up in a very blue state. In fact I was surprised that there were ANY soda counties in Idaho, but there is--Blaine County, although when I checked the numbers, they had 6 respondents with 1 saying "pop" and 4 saying "soda" (and 1 other). But that was Blaine County--where there are more horses and sheep than humans and the official drink is moonshine. Here's a link with all the facts and figures.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I went to the link and read it all and this was the overall conclusion, "People who say "Pop" are much, much cooler." so even though you may be a hick from Idaho, you are "much, much cooler."

The Practicalist said...

There is a Mormon influence that is not taken into account on that map. My wife, who grew up in Arkansas (you think you are a hick), which is a predominantly red state, and has almost never been outside of the state, says "pop". We decided that is from living amongst those displaced Mormons.