Pop - Tyson Key

I have seen this before and find it fascinating especially the parts of the country where it's referred to as a Coke. What happens if you want a Pepsi or a Sprite? - Kenton

Heh, good question, Kenton - Tyson Key

It's always called a 'Coke' regardless of what the beverage actually is. At least that's how it is/was with my country Southern relatives. - Derrick

But Derrick what I don't get is if you are in a restaurant that serves many different things, how would you order? I can see it if you go to someone's house and they say what do you want and you say Coke, you get what they have, but the restaurant part confuses me. - Kenton

Strange but true: I checked http://popvssoda.com as part of my job interview preparations before taking this job in Memphis back in 2005. - Daniel J. Pritchett

the same thing that happens when you call facial tissues Kleenex but you refer to a product other than Kleenex. it's not terribly complicated :). i call it soda-pop, which may be due to an unhealthy exposure to the Outsiders as a child. @Kenton in an environment where it's Coke, you would likely be asked what type in that situation, just as you would if you said you'd like a soda-pop and there was more than one type available. - jocoda

Kenton, they'd say they wanted a Coke, then the waiter/waitress would say what kind, then they'd say root beer, 7Up, whatever afterwards. I always just asked for iced tea. - Derrick

LOL Derrick, that sounds like the safe thing to do. - Kenton

I always say "soda" in hopes of avoiding the "you asked for Coke but all we have is Pepsi, is Pepsi OK?" question because I am happy drinking whichever. They always ask though, so I guess I need a new gambit. Worse, my parents like to pull out the old "were you raised by Yankees?!" when I say "soda" in their presence. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Anyone know what an "other" might be? - Frank Senseney

Frank: soft drink, fizzy, and cola come to mind. - Mark Trapp

Restaurants work the same way here, at least in Texas. The waitress takes your drink order, and you tell her what you want. No one here says "coke" generically, to a waitress. If the waitress asks me what I want to drink and I want Dr. Pepper, I say, "Dr. Pepper." However, in casual conversation, "coke" means soft drink here and when someone wants a soft drink, we say "I want a coke." - Trish R

I WANT A LITER OF COLA: http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Daniel J. Pritchett

Fizzy lifting drinks! - Yolanda

I think I say "soda." It's hard to say, because I generally call my beverage "DVC" (The right initials never stuck in my head when I switched from Diet Vanilla Coke to Vanilla Coke Zero, besides, VCZ is not as cool to say). I rarely ever use a generic term. My country-deepsouthern relatives say "pop." - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Why are people using the terms "country" and "southern" as meaning the same thing? - Trish R

Here in Australia they are usually called soft drinks or fizzy drinks, as opposed to beer which if often called "piss". "Let's have a piss-up, who's going to get the piss?" Classy eh? - jjprojects

The widespread emergence of using a specific brand of soda to refer to all types when many different types are vastly different from each other puzzles me. You can compare it to Xerox, but on the other hand you get the same result from a Xerox copy machine and a Lexmark copy machine while there's a drastic difference between Sprite, Coke, Dr. Pepper, et al. Reading the above comments I see how it's used, but how it's used seems like a waste of time to me. - Tom Harrison

Pop is Michigan - bcultral

Pop. When I lived in Georgia it was soda. - Fulaan

The blog you cite is for invited readers only. - John P

"Tonic" is one of the "others" in Massachusetts. - John P