Pop Or Soda ... Or Something Else?

You've had this argument before. We all have. It usually goes something like this:

"You wanna pop?"
"A what?"
"A pop?"
"You mean a 'soda?'"
"No, a pop."
"No, you mean a 'soda,' and if you say 'pop' again, I'm going to pop you in the nose."

Well, maybe the discussion doesn't get that heated, but the old soda vs. pop controversy has many ardent followers ...

... like Alan McConchie, father of the The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy Web site.

An Idea Pops Into A Head

McConchie, a Washington state native (who says "pop"), initially got the idea to track pop vs. soda references based on geography while he was a freshman at Caltech.

"As I talked to people from all over the country at the freshman orientation, I began to notice there seemed to be a clear correlation between where people came from and whether they said 'pop' or 'soda,'" he told us.

Originally he had planned to place color-coded pushpins on a U.S. map, but as he learned more about the Internet, the pop vs. soda debate seemed like a natural fit for a Web site.

So Who Says What, Anyway?

McConchie's initial data suggested what he already believed: People in California and New York say "soda," people in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest say "pop," and Southerners say "coke."

But he says there are anomalies that have surprised him: "Southern Florida being a 'soda' area was a bit surprising, and Wisconsin and the St. Louis area being 'soda' was a huge surprise." An even stranger phenomenon, he states, is that "in northeast Massachusetts and southeast New Hampshire, they say 'tonic,'" although he never has heard anyone call a soft drink "tonic" in person (neither have I, come to think of it).

Potato Bugs, Soda Crackers And Water Coolers

McConchie says he receives a fair amount of e-mail suggesting other words for him to conduct a survey on, such as dinner vs. supper and saltines vs. soda crackers.

One Harvard linguistics professor sent him an e-mail suggesting that he run a survey on the sub/grinder/hoagie/hero question as well as the "pill bug"/"roly-poly"/"sow bug"/"potato bug"/"doodle bug"/"basketball bug" debate.

For now, McConchie is just sticking to the pop vs. soda debate, although he has not ruled out expanding his surveys to other words in the future.

"The geographical distribution of pop vs. soda seems the most bizarre and fascinating, but I guess I won't really know about the others until I try to map them," McConchie said.

Until that time, if you want to weigh in with your thoughts on people who use the same term for their father as they do their soft drink, then by all means, go to The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy Web site and let your voice be heard. Undervotes will be counted.