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a) Not American
b) Nederlands is the *Dutch* word for Dutch
c) Vlaams is the *Dutch* word for Flemish
d) The local vernacular varies wherever you go. Just because you haven't experienced it, doesn't mean it's universally that way. Take http://popvssoda.com/ for example. If you ask someone in California for a "pop" they likely wouldn't know what you're talking about while someone in Montana would. Here's a university reference for for Begian-Dutch: https://translate.google.ca/tr...

http://www.popvssoda.com/ says it all.

I mean, I love pop myself, but just how much of it do you guys drink down there?

Actually, most of the people I know don't drink "pop.". We drink soda. Only midwesterners drink pop .

Like being in the midwest and asking for a coke, and you get a pepsi--because coke means soda. Go out east coast and ask for a coke and they're like... we have pepsi, is that ok?

You mean the south/southeast? It's pop or soda in the midwest.
http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html

Do you mean 'soda'?

This is a question of English dialects. See: http://popvssoda.com/

My mother once got a funny look from a guest from the Midwestern United States when she offered him 'soda'. To him soda was baking soda.

http://popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html

It depends on where you live, too. Pretty much anywhere in the southeast US, the generic term for soft drinks (cola or not) is "coke".

http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html

http://popvssoda.com:2998/countystats/total-county.html

That depends on where you live. See The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy page for details. It's surprisingly interesting. To offset that OT comment I will now sheepishly admit that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is my favourite of all the Star Wars movies and yes, I will go see it again in 3D.

It's a regional eccentricity from the southern US; they tend to refer to all carbonated beverages as "Coke".

There's a nice map showing regional terms at the Pop vs Soda Page.

No one get's a soda, they get a coke, even when that 'coke' is a Pepsi

Depends on where you live...

Seriously? You sound like a rube when you say "pop", or that your vocabulary didn't progress beyond the age of 5.

Yeah, because only Midwesterners say it.

http://popvssoda.com:2998/countystats/total-county.html The terms seem to be very region-dependant.

http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2005/01/coke_contra_mun.html/
and
http://popvssoda.com:2998/countystats/total-county.html/
explain how they use "Coke" as a generic term for carbonated beverage.

It depends on the area of the county as to the correct generic term as this site shows.

No offense: I poke fun at the Texans' way of calling all carbonated drinks "coke", too.

This is a litte OT, but it's not just Texas:

http://popvssoda.com/

It's all user entered data, not very scientific, but it started to clear up things for me & my college friends.

Yeah, I'd like a lemonade coke please.

http://popvssoda.com/

To be fair, even though Missouri and Kansas are neighbors geographically, they are worlds apart politically. Kansas is a decidedly red state, while Missouri is perhaps the swingiest of swing states. (See the Wikipedia page on the Missouri bellwether.) The major difference is that while Kansas is almost completely rural, Missouri has its own urban east and west "coasts": St. Louis and Kansas City. As it turns out, the population distribution happens to closely mirror that of the nation as a whole, and as a result, Missouri has "picked" the winner of every presidential election since 1900, with the exception of 1956. So, though it supported the Republicans in 2002 and 2004, it supported the Democrats in 2006, while supporting the "liberal" stem cell and minimum wage measures that were on the ballot, mirroring the country as a whole.

And, of course, there's the strange fact that unlike the rest of the Midwest, the St. Louis area tends to say "soda" instead of "pop," as this map shows.

The point, as I learned it, was that a trademark becomes generic when it becomes the generic term for that product. E.g. "Cola" is a generic term for a certain type of soft drink, but "Coca-Cola" is not.

No, but "Coke" is, in the South.

Maybe I am showing my age. I just took a scientific study of my quahog co-workers (sample size of one) and he had no idea what I was talking about. He calls it "soda-pop." According to this survey only four of 656 Rhode Island respondents call soda tonic. However, the term is holding its own in Mass, where 1129 of 5196 surveyed say tonic. AFAIK this is only an eastern Mass phenomenon. Kelly's Roast Beef lists tonic on the menu, although not on their web site. Not sure what you are talking about regarding Rhodie's diminutive proportions. I don't think anyone was criticizing them. Only her history of massive corruption, which personally I find quaint.

I think that this page is important in this discussion. I wonder if the map would look different if this study were performed today. Maybe I can talk some of my schoolmates/professors into doing another study.

As someone who grew up in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area and relocated several times (home, school, first job, etc...), I've always found the The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy interesting. I now tend to go with the term "soda" but grew up calling it "pop". My mother always gives me a hard time with this and other terms like "rubber band" vs "gum band".

Jim

HFCS is almost a direct replacement to sugar in many (most?) of today's processed foods, and that is just about everything (breads, snacks, condiments, pop, "juice", etc...). The problem is that HFCS does not cause the body to produce the same levels of insulin, so your body doesn't "register" the same calories that it does with pure sugar.

Having a six-pack of soda/pop/coke/whatever-ya-call-it 30 years ago was virtually unheard of. No one in their right mind would buy a 2L bottle because it would go flat before the kids could get through it. But with the substitution of HFCS, getting through a 2L bottle in a day is no problem (ain't progress great!).

I've become a radical. I've abandonned the soft drink world entirely. I tried diet drinks at first, but then I started drinking water, tea, coffee, milk and more water. I've not missed Coke-a-Pepsi-Co-And-Friends (at least, not their soft drink divisions).

The only problem I run into is when I occasionally find myself grabbing something at a fast food restaurant. I've had to re-train myself that a "value meal" isn't getting as much as possible...it is getting what I want and what I want is a healthy choice. I'll pay the extra $0.25 or whatever for the bottled water or even give up the "package deal" to avoid getting crap I don't need.

see here http://www.popvssoda.com/

--
Evan

Ah, y'all must be from the South...

:)

So which is the oldest: Icee, Slurpee, or Slush Puppy?

*Whew*! I'm glad I don't drink pop.

Soda, on the other hand, I down by the bucketful. But at least it's not that evil "pop" stuff...

(Sorry. Couldn't resist. Guess where I live...)

The possibility of Google loosing its effectiveness as a brand name due to generalization could go two ways as I see it. On the one hand you have brands like those mentioned above that have lost their recognition as a brand name completely (I had no idea about escalator) and then you have brands like Coke. Let's take a look at Coke as a noun. Fortunately for Coke, it's only generically used in the South as far as I or http://www.popvssoda.com/ can tell. I don't think they have to worry about their brand name going the way of escalator for the entire United States. However, within the South they have suffered something of a setback. On the other hand, in Japan they use the generic word cola (kora) to mean a Coke-a-Cola, an interesting reverse of a generic word being used only to point to a specific product. Maybe Google will one day have the good fortune of being on a one to one relationship with the word "search". *shudder* Although, that is highly doubtful.

Coke rules the world.

Last 3 presidents come from COKE country !!!

http://www.popvssoda.com/

The map is a little spotty in areas, maybe you live in a non-Coke spot.

Actually, the Pop vs Soda thing isn't Canadian vs American. Take a look at this map, which shows which term is predominantly used in each part of the US and Canada.

The biggest differences between American and Canadian English that I know of have to do with spelling. eg: colour vs color, metre vs meter, etc. The only differences I've noticed in spoken English are zed vs zee thing, and the nonsensical way Americans use "quarter of" when referring to the time. (to me "quarter of 12" is 3, but to Americans it apparently means "a quarter to 12")

Could you repeat that? I didn't understand a word you posted because of your accent.

Sorry 'bout that, I was drinking a pop at the time.

Well I can't say anything for the rest of the world, but more people in the US say pop than soda.

Somebody even did a linguistic study on this.

http://www.popvssoda.com/

Here is a very cool picture-graph of the entire U.S.:

http://www.popvssoda.com/

Are we to understand that frequent use of a trademark renders it generic?

Precisely

How about "Coke" when referring to a beverage?

It's already happened. Much like making a xerox or using a kleenex.