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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
in Atlanta I would have to ask "what kind of coke do you have?"?!)
Well, I can't recall actually hearing that, here, but if it were asked, the server wouldn't blink an eye. Usually we say something like, "You want a coke?". If the answer is yes, the next question is, "What kind do you want?". Then the person says root beer, Pepsi, or whatever. I agree with my friend, who wrote me today that "The term "soda" was reserved for the fountain concoction of
> ice cream, flavored syrup and sparkling soda water." Though to be honest, I don't know where I'd go to get one, these days.
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Joined: Feb 2002
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833 |
the fountain concoction
you mean....a "float"?!
I'm with WW on the ickiness of the term "pop." [un-cool-e] In my fambly we tend to say "soft drink" or "fizzy drink."
Two more notes on the subject:
1. If you put a spoonful of sugar in a fizzy drink, it de-fizzes it (something my Mum taught me when I was little!).
2. In the UK, if you ask for "lemonade" when you are in a pub or restaurant, you will be given a carbonated lemon-flavoured drink. "Lemonade" as North Americans understand it is very hard to come by in the UK and Ireland. I think they call it something like "old-style lemonade" (but I am very willing to sit corrected if anyone would like to correct me).
If you can't see the bright side, polish the dull side.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>talking about stuff that seems amazing to me but sends my friends to sleep I've just looked at your profile, Bonzo - it looks like you are in the right place here. I'm sure that we've been here before. In soft drink terms, my (UK) understanding is: Pop - old fashioned word, used by my parents generation, anyone of my years would regard it as an insult - implying that the person asking thinks that we are about five. Soda - The stuff that people used to put in whisky from a soda syphon (you can buy bottles of soda water now) http://www.kitsch.co.uk/babycham.htm. I never knew what a soda fountain was - I always imagined a kind of place that children could go with a fountain in the middle of the shop where you could hold out a glass and collect soda for free. I didn't like the stuff that I'd tried from a soda syphon so I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to go there. Similarly - "milk bar" - I wondered if they were places for people who didn't have fridges. Later, of course we got the "Sodastream" , a way of creating unrecognisable coloured fizzy drinks at a not particularly cheap price. Ice cream sodas were good though when you could get one (yes, MG, that must be the same as an ice cream float). > coke - we are doing fizzy drinks here, aren't we? In that case it's a generic name for coke-like drinks. So you could ask for a coke in a bar and they would say "we only have Pepsi, is that OK?". Really sad generic coke-like drinks are called "cola" and tend to only have the required colour but no particular flavour. As MG says, lemonade is a clear (or maybe yellow coloured) fizzy drink. It will only taste of lemons if it says "old fashioned lemonade" and then, probably not that much. Sometimes you will be offered "Sprite" if you ask for lemonade but it isn't really the same - too much of a lemon flavour. Flat lemonade is hard to come by, as is iced tea (although becoming easier to find). As for Irn Bru .... [Edit - spooky simultaneous reply Shona - we must be soul mates!]
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
I agree with the bonzer one as regards the UK perspective (not that that appeared to matter in the original survey - Harrumph! [infringing copyright])
"Pop" is for Enid Blyton stories and comic(book)s.
If I had to come up with a general term for non-alcoholic drinks, then it would be "soft drinks" as a general term and "fizzy drinks" to restrict the list to carbonated stuff.
Something to make Coca Cola weep - if we asked for a non-specific "coke", especially in a pub, we could be given any variety of cola (including supplier's own). But the barman would "eh??" at any other kind of fizzy drink being called "coke".
Lemonade, as we know of it, is a clear drink, lots of bubbles, sugar and artificial lemon flavour. But you couldn't make a shandy with anything other than this type of lemonade and ale!
"Soda" still doesn't mean very much over here. Older people may ask for a whiskey and soda (water), but traditional soda water used to come from dispensers that don't exist any more. I can't even remember what they were called.
In some contexts you would think of bicarbonate of soda, or washing soda, but those usages are also rare. Interesting.
Edit: Snap, Jo!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
No no, a float is just ice cream in a fizzy drink, of whatever flavor. Vanilla ice cream in Coke is delicious. Root beer floats enjoyed popularity also, but I've never tried one.
Shona, I hope you weren't snapping your fingers "in-your-face" to my friend! [mock warning glare e]
Jo, that is quite a site. Baby-cham? Strange name. I notice they have both syphon and siphon--the latter being how it is spelled here. I am also curius about All our products are tested at point of dispatch... I feel sure I've seen it Brit-spelled despatch.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I was very surprised to see that in Virginia "soda" was the by far the most submitted term in the survey.
But when I looked carefully at the map of the nation, I noticed little pockets of colors indicating "other" for the top choice. I just submitted my "other" response to the survey: "soft drinks."
And, yes, Jackie, I have heard people ask, "Do you want a Coke?" And then ask, "What kind do you want?"
But usually I hear people talk about "soft drinks" and what kind they want.
Me, I don't drink many soft drinks at all. Much prefer coffee.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Back in the late sixties, I worked for a soft-drinks firm, selling bottles from door to door an a regular round (a bit like a milkman, but weekly, rather than daily!) By coincidence, part of my "round" was in Wellyboro - where CapK is currently an esteemed resident.
In all of that part of the country, I was known as a "pop-man" and it was "pop" that I sold: but about five miles to the east of Wellyboro (I'boro and "Ah'm Ferr's", CapK) the concoction was known as "spruce" - I, therefore, was the "spruce-man" in those places.
Ironic, really, as I used to dress in scruffy jeans and a mock leather jacket and tacketty boots: anything less spruce you could hardly imagine.
I wonder if the kids of Irthlingborough and Higham Ferrers still call it "spruce"? I rather doubt it [sigh-e]
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,561 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,561 Likes: 1 |
My old roommate (he-who-used-to-be-an-oblate-monk) hailed from Corvallis, Oregon. He would add to this discussion that "soda" comes from "sodium," and where he grew up the custom was to order a "lime phosphate," as opposed to our "lime soda." Different mineral in the water. Tasted different, too, he said.
Anyone else ever come across this variation? I know I haven't, not since that one mention.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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We used to drink these all the time in my callow youth. May have been more common in Iowa City than in Chicago since I associate them with my cousin Paul, who lived there. We visited his family on occasional summers.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
well he is right about soda (usually) meaning sodium, and phosphates being different and tasting different... but boy oh boy, that is old time..
i remember having a phosphate once, as a child on some grand trip my parents went on. maybe in some small town on the way to Niagara falls...
phosphates are used in cola, (real Coke that is) at least in diet cola, less than 1% sodium and phosphoric acid is the 4th ingredient, according to the label.
phosphates are sourer than sodium based carbonation.
(lately between reading about corn (and many of the sodium based products that came from corn production, like baking soda) and Uncle Tungsten, my mind is swimming with chemistry!)
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