What Do You Call This Popular Beverage?

[beta-ray]

Without more info (smell, etc), I'd call it a soda.

For some reason the people of my grandparents generation here called it soda water.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, soda water is carbonated water. You put it drinks. Soda siphons were a standard wedding present in the 60s..

 

[jian]

Yeah, soda water is carbonated water. You put it drinks. Soda siphons were a standard wedding present in the 60s..

And Soda Streams were a popular family purchase (ideally as a present from the kids to the parents, as it were) in the 80s and 90s. Maybe still are? No idea. Takes a bit of the mystique out of fizzy drink delivery, I guess - you can play at being a skint pub at home and only put half the syrup dose in everyone’s drinks.

 

[trappedslider]

And Soda Streams were a popular family purchase (ideally as a present from the kids to the parents, as it were) in the 80s and 90s. Maybe still are?

Soda streams have had a resurgence in the last five+ years

 

[gnarlygninja]

My initial reaction is to say 'coke', but that gets filtered through years of learning that if I call it that I'm probably going to have an irritating conversation and the word 'soda' comes out of my mouth instead.. In my home state, there was some geography/class playing into it, so calling it coke might get viewed as backwards or country depending on how polite the other person wanted to be. But after moving to California, and dealing people acting like I'd grown a second hand that was speaking in tongues if I call it coke, I try to avoid any such regionalism.

 

[Clint_L]

Soda gun - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Soda fountain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Calling it a pop fountain makes sense in the areas where "pop" is the predominant term over "soda". Here where soda is the term, it's still a soda fountain.

View attachment 408280. View attachment 408281


What term do you use for this machine?

View attachment 408278

Can guarantee that I never heard anyone call a pop machine a pop "fountain", or the bar gun (that is what we called it; thanks for the reminder) a soda gun, but pop is seldom called soda where I live, and then mostly by American tourists (when I was younger, it was never used, to the extent that if anyone asked for a soda you would assume they meant club soda). And fountain for pop machine sounds like old timey American talk, like an old prospector or something.

 

[Clint_L]

From living in BC for a couple of years I’d be surprised if the people in Quebec did as well - they’re just Canadians who speak French.

Oh, man...

I'll let a Quebecois handle that one.

 

[dbolack]

It did at Pizza Hut with your Book-it Personal Pan Pizza!

 

[Tonguez]

Can guarantee that I never heard anyone call a pop machine a pop "fountain", or the bar gun (that is what we called it; thanks for the reminder) a soda gun, but pop is seldom called soda where I live, and then mostly by American tourists (when I was younger, it was never used, to the extent that if anyone asked for a soda you would assume they meant club soda). And fountain for pop machine sounds like old timey American talk, like an old prospector or something.

its funny we always thought of Soda pop as being the 'American' word for it, that you'd get from the Soda Bar along with Ice Cream Soda.

of course our exposure to the US Soda Bars at the time was via TV and Movies

 

[dbolack]

Is it? I've never heard that term in my life.

There's no "is definitely" in this conversation. There's only "in my very limited personal experience of the world".

It's a soda fountain everywhere I've been, an extension of the time when you'd go to Woolworths and get one from a Soda Jerk.