What Do You Call This Popular Beverage?

[CleverNickName]

What do you call this?

Image: iStock

 

[CleverNickName]

In Oklahoma, this is a common conversation at mealtime:

Joe: Do you want a coke?
Bob: Sure.
Joe: What kind?
Bob: Dr. Pepper.

Yep, I grew up referring to all brown carbonated beverages as "coke" regardless of their flavor. Root beer, cola, cream soda, or ginger ale...Coke or Pepsi or Dr. Pepper...they are all "cokes," especially if you can't see the label.

But having lived on the other side of the Continental Divide for the last 30 years, I've picked up new vocabulary. Everyone here calls it "soda," so that's what I've been calling it in order to avoid confusion.

 

[Morrus]

Assuming it's not Pepsi, I call it a Coke. Generally I just call drinks what they're called. Soda is something else entirely. Pop is just any sweet fizzy drink, and pretty much limited to the 1980s. Soda pop is like garage cake or wheelbarrow window, two different things just smashed together.

I would be incapable of ordering a drink in Oklahoma, clearly. Luckily, I don't imagine that's a problem which will ever affect me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They also do the "Coke" for all soda thing in the South generally. My folks are from the South, but my family calls things by their specific names.

 

[CleverNickName]

Assuming it's not Pepsi, I call it a Coke. Generally I just call drinks what they're called. Soda is something else entirely. Pop is just any sweet fizzy drink, and pretty much limited to the 1980s. Soda pop is like garage cake or wheelbarrow window, two different things just smashed together.

I would be incapable of ordering a drink in Oklahoma, clearly. Luckily, I don't imagine that's a problem which will ever affect me.

I honestly don't know how Oklahomans manage to do lots of the things they do. But on topic: they apply branded labels to almost everything--tissues are all "Kleenexes," all headache medicines are called "Tylenols," etc.

 

[Marc Radle]

Soda is the generic term in my area of the country. Coke, Pepsi, etc. is normally only specified if someone wants that specific brand

 

[MGibster]

I typically call it a Coke but sometimes I'll say soda, pop, or soda pop. When I say soda pop people around here tell me, "You ain't from around here. Are you, boy?"

 

[Morrus]

I honestly don't know how Oklahomans manage to do lots of the things they do. But on topic: they apply branded labels to almost everything--tissues are all "Kleenexes," all headache medicines are called "Tylenols," etc.

Well, trademark genericization is not an issue local to you (just those particular brands are). Also see Xerox, Hoover, Google, Aspirin, Linoleum, Thermos, etc. Even 'Heroin'!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Even 'Heroin'!

It's been very challenging for us in the off-brand diacetylmorphine business.

 

[jdrakeh]

When I was growing up in Kansas, it was "pop" - but everywhere I've lived since then, it's been "soda". So, for me, it's now "soda".