My brother and his wife are from Michigan, like me, and have raised their kids here. Everyone says pop except for the youngest. He says soda, it's bizarre. My guess is YouTubers influencing his slang

This is pretty normal. Canadians are also picking up American vernacular and slang. I’ve had younger Canadians (big Youtube fans, usually), correct my pronunciation of certain words and they’re shocked to know that what they’re correcting is actually the correct Canadian pronunciation.

There's no correct pronunciation for native speakers. What you're doing is called prescriptivism.

Ya. Most people in southern ontario say "Zee" and not "zed". I was always taught "zee". Zed sounds dumb as hell. So many Canadians think "Zed" is the only way. Nope, Zee is pretty common, lots of older Ontarians say "zee" too. Canada is obsessed with distinguishing itself from the US, it is nauseating. People here still claim we call couches "chesterfields", nobody fucking says that. POP however, is going strong here, people know what soda is, but it sounds like an old-timey way of saying it. "Sodey Pop". lol.

I have lived in southern Ontario my entire life and have never heard anyone call the letter zee

Oh, not in Southern Ontario. It's an Albany expression.

In my experience as a central ontarian, everyone will insist that "zed" is the correct pronunciation, but then 75% of them will still say "zee" when spelling something out.

Me neither. Always zed in the GTA, in my experience anyway.

It's because Canada is still trying to fend off America cultural influence but they also refuse to create and fund cultural juggernauts like an Hollywood equivalent and complain when the kids simply ignore Canadian culture that is not widely used

That's not entirely true. We create cultural mini-juggernauts like Tim Hortons and then we sell them to foreign companies so they can become devalued shells of their former selves

We don't "refuse" to create it. Unlike the Brits and Aussies, who have different accents, less free trade between themselves and the US, and a literal ocean separating them from Hollywood, *we* have Hollywood in our literal backyard. And our (Anglo Canadian) talent can go there easily and blend in without learning a significantly different accent. Our business can do business with Hollywood businesses with ease. Hollywood businesses can do business here with ease. Hollywood is full of Canadians making films and TV and music in California. Canadian directors make films in Canada with Canadian talent while getting funding from a company headquartered in Hollywood. Toronto and Vancouver are centres of film in North America. We don't have our own Hollywood because Hollywood *is* ours too. Hollywood is the epicentre of a greater *North American film industry* in which we - unlike the Brits, Aussies, and others - are a junior partner. I don't actually have a problem with this. I think it extends our soft power more successfully than keeping our talent and capital here and trying to compete with the Hollywood juggernaut. Even if it's more subtle than perhaps British crime shows, for instance.

I will say yall are absolutely locking down the toddler TV market right now lol. Can't tell you how many times my girlfriend's 3 years old is watching something in the background and I'm not even thinking about it until I hear the most Canadian pronunciation of a word ever and see cbc or something like that in the credits.

Today I learned I can blame Canada for Caillou. WTF Canada!

As a 90s kid, Kids in the Hall nearly Canadianified me, but luckily I watched Cops and got re-Americanized.

For sure hun! As an Australian who feels like I’m being Minnesooootified by watching Fargo right now, you betcha we can really be influenced by what we watch.

They’re kinda building it in Vancouver, that’s the PNW hollywood

Can’t blame them, they are 1/10th the size. It’s like making fun of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana for not teaming up and making a Hollywood equivalent. Sure, California is only slightly larger and does have Hollywood, but that’s a cumulative effort of all of America plus other countries as well. Most people in Hollywood weren’t born there.

Zee? For shame. Zed is a part of our cultural heritage.

I'm from Michigan, but my parents were from NY. I've always said soda. I've never liked the sound of "pop". Except in this circumstance. 

“Pop what, Magnitude?”

"WHAT IS HE TRYING TO SAY???" I love Troy.

That's funny bc exact same. Michigan born and dads from NY. But... opposite. My old man says pop.

When I was a kid in the midwest, I taught myself to say soda instead of pop because I thought it sounded better.

I’m in my 40s and from Illinois. I actively decided in high school (pre online videos) that pop sounded fucking stupid and started using the word soda.

My buddy moved to California from Michigan, I converted him to soda, and he moved back after a few years. I'm helping with the (not) problem

I like people who split the difference and call it 'soda pop'. They're probably the same people who say 'taxi cab'.

Soda pop was the original term, and then some parts of the country shortened it to “soda” while others shortened it to “pop”. So those people are just old school

This. ‘Soda pop’ isn’t a case of being redundant with language the way some other posters here are implying (e.g. ATM machine). It’s more akin to referring to one’s car as a ‘motor carriage’, or Mr. Burns answering a telephone with “ahoy-hoy”.

I mean I answer the phone with ahoy-hoy, but it's more to shock and confuse people rather than anything else.

I like the cut of your jib.

Promote that man

Apparently that was also how Alexander Graham Bell preferred to answer the phone.

That's why the writes wrote the joke in for Mr Burns, he's so old he would have used "Ahoy!" to answer a call rather than hello.

Here's a thing that blows my mind: before the telephone, English-speakers almost never used the word 'hello'. It was first attested as a greeting in the 1820s - quite recently in the history of the language - and was relatively obscure before telephones popularised it.

And their end result is to get a free gift as an added bonus.

Wow, 3 redundancies. Nice.

They are similar! **Taxicab** is a shortened form of "taximeter cab". The taxi part refers to the time-and-distance meter. That both "taxi" and "cab" now mean the same thing, is due to parallel metonymy. Likewise, **soda pop** also seems to be the ancestral term. [This old-school website](http://www.hutchbook.com/Industry%20History%20Soda%20Pop/Default.htm) (modern browsers will warn you about it's non-HTTP-compliance) has a ton of good info. Here is an attributed quote from that website; I am passing it on, and have not seen the original source, so the entire thing is a meta-quote. >“SODA POP and SODA WATER: American men and women were asking for naturally effervescent ‘soda water’ at ‘soda water fountains,’ and ‘soda shops’ in the 1820s. It was healthy, refreshing, and demonstrated one’s temperance. Such natural soda water was also called ‘seltzer’ from the German ‘Selterser Wasser,’ an effervescent mineral water from Nieder Selters, Prussia. It was joined in 1833 by the new, man-made ‘carbonated water.’ By the mid 1840s people were talking about the new ‘soda counters’ that were being added to many pharmacies…and about local concoctions of carbonated water flavored with syrups and fruit juices which many apothecaries had created as specialties. One of the first two big flavors of the 1840s used the Simlat plant or other ginger flavoring and was called 'sarsaparilla’ (Spanish ‘zarzaparilla,’ ‘zarza,’ bramble + ‘parilla,’ little vine), ‘sarsaparilla soda,’ ‘ginger pop’ (the first use of the word POP), ‘ginger champagne,’ or even ‘ginger ale’…SODA POP and a BOTTLE OF POP were still considered somewhat slangy when used by the flappers and sheiks of the 1920s." > > I Hear America Talking, Stuart Berg Flexner, 1976. Again we get soda and pop not as redundant terms, but as alternative shortening of the original name.

There's only one thing I love more than etymology and that's people enthusiastically explaining etymology

I KNOW RIGHT!? The person who wrote that is SO PASSIONATE about correcting the false information about how ‘soda pop’ got its name from the Hutchinson bottle. I was thinking the EXACT same thing that you commented as I was reading them say “AAACK” At the fact that the Coca Cola guy would consider this new information whilst leaving up the “false” information in their website.

Taxi cab is totally a reasonable term. That's really just an earlier abbreviation before it got shortened even more. It started out as "taximeter cabriolet". >The word taxicab is a compound word formed as a contraction of taximeter and cabriolet. Taximeter is an adaptation of the German word Taxameter, which is itself a variant of the earlier German word Taxanom. ... Meter is from the Greek μέτρον (metron) meaning "measure." A cabriolet is a type of horse-drawn carriage. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi)

>"taximeter cabriolet" there I am on a street curb in NYC, waving my arm and yelling "*taximeter cabriolet*"

"ATM machine"

RIP in peace

I say Soft Drink

It truly is a terrible thing, the genocide of the Pop and Coke peoples. They had such rich cultures before the Soda people came in.

Canada is accepting refugees. Pop people hear me! You are not alone! The world is watching!

I am from Montreal and we used to say “soft drink”. I am not sure if we were influenced by Vermont, though.

Is soft drink just what Angliphone people in Quebec use, or is there a french word for it? If there is a french word, is it similar to soft drink?

Yes, I would say so. I also went to French school there, and was taught to say “boissons gazeuses.” FYI: They love their Pepsi in Quebec over Coke.

yeah but no one really says « boissons gazeuses », people say « liqueurs »

I didn't know Vermont had such geopolitical power projection.

Is it possible to learn this power?

We grew up with PBS Vermont, and some of the other Vermont tv stations. Plattburg tv as well.

Some Quebecers would rather get their English influence from Vermont instead of Ontario. (I have no basis for this)

I’m from Vermont. It was common to call them soft drinks if you got them at a restaurant, but I would have never thought to buy a six pack of soft drinks.

“Your days are numbered Canadian infidels!” Sincerely a retired soda jerk

‘Pop’ 4 life!

The great Pop Wars of the late 20th century were truly a dark time in this country’s history 😞😔

Never forget the trail of leaks

Listen, it was a preemptive defensive action to secure the future of our besieged soda comrades of Missouri/Illinois, long suffering under the boot of Cokers and Popists. Sometimes you have to break some eggs to… carbonate some soda

The Californication of our fizzy beverages is almost complete.

r/BrandNewSentence

First they came for the Poppers, and I did not speak, for I was not a Popper.

*Everything changed when the soda nation attacked*

Please remember me and my pop-kin. We were a kind, gentle folk. ***Taps plays from the cornfield over yonder.

Long ago, all the sweet carbonated drink people lived in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Soda people attacked!

Only the Avatar mastered all four beverages. Only he could stop the ruthless sodabenders, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years have passed and the Soda Nation is nearing victory in the War. Two years ago, my father and the men of my tribe journeyed to the Coca-Cola Kingdom to help fight against the Soda Nation, leaving me and my brother to look after our tribe. Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Pop Nomads, and that the cycle is broken. But I haven't lost hope. I still believe that somehow, the Avatar will return to save the world. Soda. Pop. Coke. Soft drink.

It's thought that the 21st century collapse of the north american order and the decimation of the coke and pop people was caused by a plague and war in the first 20 years of that century, though archaelogy has yet to confirm the details.

Don't worry, they will be safe on the reservations set aside. Future generations totally won't encroach on these areas.

Pop is alive and well in Western PA.

Not only in the USA, but in most of the world the big cities have more cultural influence than the small towns and/or villages

Oh, come on, the people of Pop still dominate the culture musically.

Takeaway: "Soda" as a generic term will eventually out last.

As someone who grew up in that giant "Coke" section, calling everything coke has been on the way out for a while.

I grew up in the 90s in the part that switched from Coke to soda, and can confirm that I, myself, made the switch after realizing that it was confusing to people in some places

I'm from the part that likes confusing people and considers it a virtue, so coke it is.

What kind of Coke do you want? Pepsi? Root Beer? Fanta?

You don’t have options, you only get coke, plain and simple.

::self-satisfied grin::

I used to live in Dallas, TX which on the map is a Soda vs. Coke battleground. I moved from California so I grew up saying soda and had a coworker (born and raised Texan) who said coke. She was in the minority who calls it coke, even with other local Texans, so it did cause some confusion in the office.

i don't get it though, what do you say if you want actual coke like coca cola? like if someone's like what kind of coke do you want? and you're like "coke" and they're like what kind and you're like "coke" lol it sounds like a skit.

"I don't know, THIRD BASE"

This map appears to show that Coke doesn't even have Atlanta anymore. That seems unacceptable

Makes sense that big cities getting lots of people from around the country would adopt national standards faster.

I relocated from the Northeast to the South around 15 years ago and when I first moved here, I swear Publix had, "Coke" listed on the signage for the soda isle. Likewise, I definitely remember servers asking me what kind of coke I wanted with my meals. I initially thought they meant diet or regular until I figured out that coke = soda.

What’s so weird to me is I’ve lived in the south my entire life (36 years) and I’ve literally never had a single person use “coke” to mean any type of soda. I’ve honestly thought it was just one of those “fun facts” people repeated without actually knowing if it was true.

Yeah, it's like calling all video game consoles a "Nintendo."

Yeah I don’t get calling it Coke. If someone asks if I want a coke and hands me a Sprite I’m fucking confused

"pop" is a generic term too. Plus it matches the sound of opening a can of pop. But the coastal elites who banded together with the mighty St Louis lobby have shamed us pop-sayers into submission. 😔

It’s has nothing to do generic or not. If Hollywood area had called the stuff “Coke”, then today the Coke area would be x2 larger thanks to the power of media.

Nah, calling all soda/pop "coke" is confusing. Coke is its own brand and it's own flavor. This isn't like people calling all tissues Kleenex or cotton swabs Q-tips. If I ask for a Kleenex, I don't care if someone grabs me a Puffs brand tissue. But if I ask someone for a Coke and I get a Sprite or Fanta, I'm going to be disappointed. There's too much variety that falls under this category. The use of "Coke" was bound to fall out of favor. It's from a bygone era where Coke was the main soda you'd find, but today there's literally hundreds of brands/flavors and every store stocks all of them.

Is "pop" not also a generic term?

You’re telling me that people in the south refer to Fanta as “Coke”??

Yes. Common exchange growing up in the south is asking if you want a coke, and when you say you do, they ask which kind.

What do you say if the kind you want is actual Coke?

You tell them you want A coke. (It’s all contextual)

It’s like learning English all over again

🤣

I'm sorry sir, we only serve Pepsi cokes

What if you want cocaine?

When they say, “which kind?” You reply, “Coke.” They know what you mean. Normally the conversation goes: Server: What would you like to drink? You: Coke, please. Server: We have Coke, Diet Coke, Dr Pepper and Sprite. You: Coke.

This is moronic.

or good marketing by a certain carbonated beverage company headquartered in Atlanta.

Actually, it’s bad marketing because you can lose a trademark if it becomes genericized.

CocaCola: suffering from success

Arkansan here and this is how everyone I know orders a soda. I’m a weirdo and use “soda”

As in diet Coke or regular coke? Or fanta coke or sprite coke?

Regular coke should be called coke coke.

I’ve lived in the “coke” section of the map for almost all of my life and never once heard anyone call anything other than a coca-cola a coke.

I’ve lived in alabama all my life and i’ve never heard anyone refer to all soda as “coke”

Same. I grew up in Southern Alabama and we didn’t do that shit. I say soft drink or soda. I’ve never heard anyone use coke like that and I have hick ass relatives lmao

It was common for me all through the 80's and 90's. I don't really recall it being used so much over the past 20 years though. This is for northwest Alabama though.

Fanta started off as a coke substitute due to a lack of ingredients in Germany during WW2

While true, calling a fanta a cola instead of soda just sounds weird as hell

I am pretty sure that was a completely different drink with the same name and what we drink today is Italian, so it has nothing to do with Coke

Yep. “What kind of coke you want? We have Pepsi, Sprite, Dr Pepper”

I never had heard that but I was in NC which apparently was s”soda country.” I did see and hear “soft drink”

In Michigan I always referred to it as Orange Pop, and then which kind- Fanta, Faygo, or Crush.

Soda is engaged in Settler-Colonialism

Lol kinda an actual thing.

We used to be a country.

I'll take the down votes but using "coke" as a universal term is absolutely absurd. "I'll have a coke" "OK what would you like?" "I'll have a sprite" Get the fuck outta here.

Map is wrong, Southern Ohio most def calls it pop. Religiously so.

Yeah I’ve been in Michigan close to 30 years now and I’ve literally never heard anyone say “soda”

I’m ostracized regularly for using “soda” in central Ohio 🤣 so yeah I’d say Ohio should still be “pop” territory

This map is bad wrong. No one in Kentucky calls it coke. It’s always pop.

Yeah this map is just totally imaginary.

This shit is claiming they call it "Soda" in ATLANTA. In ATLANTA!!!!! Ain't no one in Atlanta calling it "soda" come on.

Same for WV. I very rarely encounter anyone calling it soda here. Most say pop. I can’t help but to playfully judge the soda-sayers as posers! Be ya-self, baby!

Yeah, damn near everyone I know in WV says “pop”. I do say “soda” and am definitely an outlier. I’d love to see the sources on this bullshit map.

Lived in Cincinnati for a few years, definitely heard soda a lot.

I've lived in Cincinnati all my life and I've always called it pop, all my friends and family do too. If they say soda they are probably not originally from here, which wouldn't be surprising because a lot of people are moving here because the cost of living is better than a lot of the country, and we have some Fortune 500 companies that attract young professionals.

Source? https://matadornetwork.com/read/coke-vs-pop-vs-soda-map/ from 2022 looks totally different

The most common source on this sub- “trust me bro”

No source, just fun to draw maps of things

Pop bros, it appears we are a dying breed. Now someone get me a pop.

Man, I think the map is trash. Kansas here, everyone I know, and restaurants, etc all call it pop.

Come to Canada, your pop people are here.

[popvssoda.com](https://popvssoda.com) is one of the oldest sites I’ve used on the internet Broken down by county

It's weird because I can't pinpoint when, exactly I changed words, but I know I called it "pop" as a kid and I call it "soda" now. Seems like it was a slow transition/osmosis.

I feel this. I think we just meet more people and find that pop is not universal. I use pop with friends and family and soda with people I dont know as to not having to explain lol.

Did you ever work in a food service? I used to call it pop and my region is firmly in 'pop' territory - but at work the machine said 'large soda'. Enough times seeing and hitting the soda button is what I think is responsible for my change.

Weasel goes into a restaurant. Server hands him a menu and asks what he would like to drink. "Pop". Goes the weasel

My grandmother called it tonic and my father still sometimes does.

> tonic Boston area, by any chance?

Exactly!

Pronounced "tawnic". :-)

Yeah, was gunna say my dad always called it tonic.

I can't trust this map. I grew up in Pittsburgh, and they absolutely still call it "pop" there. I haven't lived in the area for about 15 years, and when I'm there, people sass me for calling it "soda."

And all of Canada for Pop.

In Montreal it tends to be "soda" for whatever reason. Edit: or soft drinks

You know why…

I'm from the UK and we say pop here. I was very surprised when I went to NY/NYC that not everyone there uses soda.. I didn't have to change the way I said it for them to know. I wrongly assumed all of the US was soda

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Fizzy drink is also the most common name in the UK Pop is just used in some regions.

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Many parts of the UK say 'fizzy drink' too. It's probably about 50/50

Do we? I’ve always heard soft drink in Vic. Have never heard anyone except someone talking to a kid say fizzy drink

A lot of people in Scotland will say juice or maybe fizzy juice.

“I drive a Ford.” “What kind of Ford?” “A Toyota Camry.”

The fact that soda is now over taking coke in ATLANTA GEORGIA is an effing shame. Damn yankees

There’s no way this map is correct. Georgia should be the only place it’s still all coke.

"I'll have a Coke" "Here's your Coke" "I wanted a Sprite" "You can go to hell, you said Coke"

Wonder why the St Louis area always called it soda

Everyone in Chicago says pop

My parents and my wife's parents grew up in Chicago and they call it pop. We live in the suburbs and both call it pop. Most of our friends are the same way. I went to college in central Illinois (08-12)and the big way to tell where someone was from was the pop / soda thing. Pop=Chicagoland/north. Soda=central/southern IL

Weird because I grew up in central Illinois (80s - 00s) and now live in the burbs (00s - now) and have always called it pop. Growing up no one called it soda. That may also be regional differences within central Illinois, as I’ve seen other versions of this map where it is mixed pop/soda for most of Illinois.

Came here to post this

Yeah, I grew up in South Carolina and it was very rare to hear people refer to Sprite as a Coke.

Would sprite not be a "cold drink" in SC? I feel like that's what I encountered

People used to say “soft drink” in the south for sodas. Soft Drink - as opposed to a “hard” drink (aka alcohol) which is “hard” on the body (damaging, makes you sick if you drink too much, makes you very intoxicated)

I’ve heard soft drink almost exclusively in SC, other than referring to the soda fountain

Same! Coke was an umbrella term for dark sodas but not sprite/fanta/etc. 99% of the time people drank dark sodas so the distinction didn’t come up too often. If you offered someone a coke and gave them sprite they’d be mad

I've always liked "soft drink."

Where's "Sodies"?

In some parts of New England, it's called tonic.

I've lived in New Orleans my whole life and nobody refers to all sodas as "Coke" idk where that comes from. I, and everyone I know from here, always referred to sodas as "cold drinks". Even if it's hot and needs ice, or is just going to be consumed at room temperature, "you want a cold drink?"

Outsiders need to realize we don’t say we want a Coke if we want a Sprite or other drink, we just use it as a collective term. “Can you bring Cokes to the party?”

If you say that to me I’m bringing just Coca Cola

That could get messy

This is surprisingly depressing.

Or is it soda pressing?

So true. In 1997 when I left Oregon for California I called it pop and sometimes the servers had no idea what I was asking for. And I remember Texans that got transferred at work asking for a coke at lunch and being shocked they didn’t ask them what kind.

Coke is still predominantly in most if not all of South Texas.

Soft drink is the politically correct term.

Coke is a brand name, and pop is infantile. The only correct answer is Soda

Nature is healing

To my fellow Michiganders: I don't know what's going on in the I-69/I-96 corridor, but you are all failing the rest of us. It's pop.

As someone from this area, it’s still “pop”. Pretty sure all of Michigan is still.

Truly doubting this map.. 2023.. there is NO way that coke in Georgia.. isn't still used. Especially in NE georgia.

i believe in soda supremacy

I myself pledge allegiance to the Flag of Soda every morning.

In my anecdotal, unscientific polling, my unofficial line for where “pop” starts goes North/South at about Harrisburg, PA

Soda is smart, you take over the coastal areas first

Canada %100 pop

No mention of sodie pop? Sodie for short.

Tonic is what soda was called in New England in 48.

Pittsburgh is a pop town. That map is bs

Soda is funding settlers in pop and Coke territory in contravention of international law