What do you call a carbonated soft drink?

[Inxi]

Back in Ukraine we called it Cola.

I now live in Atlanta so I still call it Cola...

[Thelasko]

This is starting to remind me of one of my favorite Simpson's episodes.

Lou: You know, I went to the McDonald's in Shelbyville on Friday night-

Wiggum: [interrupting] The McWhat?

Lou: Uh, the McDonald's. I, I never heard of it either, but they have over 2,000 locations in this state alone.

Eddie: Must've sprung up overnight.

Lou: You know, the funniest thing though; it's the little differences.

Wiggum: Example.

Lou: Well, at McDonald's you can buy a Krusty Burger with cheese, right? But they don't call it a Krusty Burger with cheese.

Wiggum: Get out! Well, what do they call it?

Lou: A Quarter Pounder with cheese.

Wiggum: Quarter Pounder with cheese? Well, I can picture the cheese, but, uh, do they have Krusty partially gelatinated non-dairy gum-based beverages?

Lou: Mm-hm. They call 'em, "shakes."

Eddie: Huh, shakes. You don't know what you're gettin'.

Wiggum: Well, I know what I'm gettin': Some doughnuts.
[He struggles to get out of the booth]

Wiggum: Uh, help me out of the booth, boys.
[Lou and Eddie pop Wiggum's booth with their forks]

[Th3Professor]

This is starting to remind me of one of my favorite Simpson's episodes.

[Phreaker]

Fizzy

[forrestcupp]

Why not just say "Let's go to McDonald's and get a Mountain Dew", makes no sense to me.

But I supose it's one of those US things like making a Xerox copy instead of a Photocopy etc.

Why do people say 'Pop' or 'Soda'? It's the generic term. I don't say "Let's go to McDonald's so I can get a Big Mac, large fries, and a baked apple pie." I say I'm going to McDonald's to get dinner. Then when I get there, I decide on the specifics. To some people "Coke" doesn't mean "Coca Cola"; it's a generic term for a carbonated soft drink. So it's really no different than saying, "Let's go get a soda" and then deciding what type of soda we want when we get there.

I'm sure if you think about it, you can figure out how this came about for some people. Coke was really the first drink of that sort to be mass produced at insane levels and gain such crazy popularity. So some people just started generically calling those types of drinks "Coke" just like Th3Proffesor's "Xerox".

And for the record, most people don't call it Xerox anymore.

[mips]

Here we go... from your link...

Coke = Redneck ?

[Th3Professor]

And for the record, most people don't call it Xerox anymore.

...until they buy that shiny new Xerox (brand) machine on Newegg. Though, even if I did get a Xerox machine, I'd still refer to making copies as "I'm going to make a copy of it" and not "I'm going to xerox it" (like I did many years ago). lol Though, do people say they're going to Kinkos or FedEx-Kinkos? <grin> Back on topic: whatever carbonated soft drink someone drinks is inevitably going to be specified by the brandname, though generically speaking, it will also inevitably always be referred to by one universal term that someone from any given background feels like calling it.

If I want to go make copies of something while drinking something, I won't say:

"I'm going to FedEx-Kinkos to Xerox those papers while I drink a Coca Cola Classic."

...instead, I might say:

"I'm going to the store to make copies of those papers while I get something to drink."

...of course, employees wouldn't want drinks there... so if ya spilled yer "beverage" on the copy machine, and if ya clean the glass using a generic brand cleaner, called "Glass Cleaner", would ya call it Windex?

I'd call it Coke.

j/k

[forrestcupp]

It's just funny looking at that map. The only place people call soft drinks "Coke" is in the south except for one small island in central Indiana. That happens to be where I live. I wonder what the reason is for that anomaly.

I know they call it Coke in the south because Coca Cola originated in Atlanta. My uncle actually worked as QC in the Coke plant around Nashville, TN. I'll bet he got sick of tasting Coke all day.

[lukjad]

And for the record, most people don't call it Xerox anymore.

They don't?

[Th3Professor]

They don't?

i do... sometimes. lol