'Cause I need to know!

[bjarvis]

[Poll #858064]

Comments

[gingy.livejournal.com]

http://gingy.livejournal.com/783411.html#cutid1

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I checked "soda", but I think I also sometimes say "soft drink".

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I use soft drink 95% of the time, but will use pop or soda to match the practice of others when their preference is clear.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Oh, and by the way, why isn't "tonic" an option? You got something against New England?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of tonic used as a generic for a class of soft drinks, only as a shorter form for tonic water. I've learned something new. :-)

[beartalon.livejournal.com]

Canadian. Pop. I've never heard anyoen except transplanted Americans call it "soda" in Canada.

We call it pop because of the "pop" when you used to open carbonated beverages. Soda is apparently a colloquialism of the ingredient sodium carbonate? Do you know?

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

exactly. the locals here almost invariably refer to carbonated beverages as "pop"; and yes, "soda" --> "ooh look, a 'murrican!"

soda, I suspect, is because they're flavoured soda water, soda water being plain fizzy water; and yes, that can be made from water and sodium (bi)carbonate + acid. at least, that's what my chemical training would tell me.

I'd never heard carbonated beverages referred to generically as "tonic" (unless specifically tonic water -- soda water + quinine) until reading a post by biiig arnold zwicky. He is from lancaster county PA.

Heard in the South

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

What kinda coke yew want?

Dr. Pepper.

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Once, when I was a kid visiting anglophone Montreal, I heard some of the locals call it "tonic." No lie.