Two Cokes Please: One Diet and One DP

May 8, 2005

Actually, I always assumed this was a particularly Texan thing to do. Guess that goes to show the arrogance of Texas! And it turns out that everyone thinking "soda" is common up here is off a bit — its said, but nowhere near as much as "pop," at least if you believe popvssoda.com.

The site's statistics, which are abstracted into the cool map above, are generate from the site's users (coke = red, pop = blue, soda = yellowish). You enter where you learned English (not where you live) and whether you call it "coke," "soda," "pop," or other (fill in). Thus far they've managed to map over 120,000 respondents — and you could be the next one! (infomercial over).

Particularly odd is the infestation of "soda" centering on St. Louis. How did that get in the middle of the country? Soda popping up in southern Florida is not that surprising, given the number of people who move there from the Northeast. Wisconsin's odd too (perhaps I should ask some Wisconsin-born coworkers what they call it?). The shift across Pennsylvania and New York is pretty cool.