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The Invisible Borders That Define American Culture

One of the clearest regional differences in the U.S. can found by tracking the words people use to refer to soft drinks, which is in fact the map you saw at the top of this story. Pop or soda, or even Coke, these small linguistic differences are not as small as we might think. While “soda” commands the Northeast and West Coast (green) and “pop” is in between (black), “Coke” reigns in the south (turquoise). These small distinctions can often act as touchstones for larger cultural differences.

Read more. [Image: Samuel Arbesman]

Okay look.  I lived in the south the vast majority of my life (until about a year ago, in fact.).  That covers Mississippi, South Carolina and Maryland (which, to be fair, says “soda” anyway, according to this map, but I digress), with inroads into Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina.

The only time I ever referred to soda as Coke and the only time I ever heard anyone around me, friend, family, or stranger, refer to soda as Coke, was when they were ordering a damn Coke.  If you wanted to know what kinds of soda were available you said “What kinds of soda are available?” at which point the person offering you a drink would say something like “Well, I have Orange Crush, Sprite, and Coke” and you would say “I’ll have Sprite, please” or “I’ll have Coke, please.”  Never once in .30 years did I ever hear anyone say “What kinds of Coke do you have” or “I’ll have a coke” when what they meant was generic soda/pop/other fizzy drink.

EXACTLY. Ugh, I hate that stereotype. We call it soda.

I find this really weird because I grew up in the SouthWest, Utah specifically, and damn near everyone calls it soda or coke?

While apparently not all of the South uses coke as the generic, the term is alive and well in my section of northern Alabama. Like, people will correct you if they only serve Pepsi, but “coke” is still all-purpose in some areas of the South.