Pop vs. Soda

One of the blogs that I have on my RSS reader is Strange Maps, which is not so much devoted to "strange" maps as it is to unusual maps. This being an interesting map, IMO.


In 1996, the Journal of English Linguistics published an article (Soda or Pop?, #24, 1996) and the above map by Luanne von Schneidemesser, PhD in German linguistics and philology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English. The article shows the regional variation in American English of the names given to that type of drink as of the mid 90s.

The reason I find this of interest is that this topic was the subject of much debate when I was a teenager. :) In the fall of 1977, the drum corps I was marching with at the time (the Mark Twain Cadets) merged with another corps sixty miles to our east (the Grenadiers of Broome County, NY) to form a new corps (the Empire State Express) that I marched with in the summer of '78.

Being typical teenagers, we all loved our soft drinks, except that we discovered there was a significant difference between the two sides of the corps: all the ex-Cadets called pop "pop" (as I still do) and all the ex-Grenadiers called pop "soda." And that was just something we had the most difficult time getting over. What do you call a soft drink? Is it pop or soda (or some other word)? And what I find extremely interesting about this map is that it shows exactly why the two corps could not agree on such a trivial matter. The county I grew up in, where the Cadets were located, is the furthest southeast in New York (along the Pennsylvania border) of the blue counties where people say "pop" (in the 50-80% range). And the Grenadiers came from two counties over to the east along the Pennsy border, which is an 80-100% "soda" county. And I never knew until now that my county was literally on the border of that great northern swath of "pop" drinkers that extends all the way from central New York to the Pacific, and from the Canadian border down south to roughly the latitude of 37° North (i.e., the southern border of the states of Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas, Colorado and Utah).

So for the entire summer, whenever we'd travel to some city or town for a parade or competition, there was this running joke in the corps: "Hey, let's see what the local people call it, soda or pop." And as you can see, whenever we were in the eastern half of New York or Pennsylvania (or, later that summer, Massachusetts), they called it "soda." And when we traveled to the western halves of New York and Pennsylvania (and Ohio), people called it "pop." (BTW, we corps members were also warned prior to our trip to Lynn, Massachusetts that the people around Boston called pop "tonic," as is mentioned in the last bullet point below.)

coke: this generic term for soft drinks predominates throughout the South, New Mexico, central Indiana and in a few other single counties in Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. ‘Coke’ obviously derives from Coca-Cola, the brand-name of the soft drink originally manufactured in Atlanta (which explains its use as a generic term for all soft drinks in the South).

pop: dominates the Northwest, Great Plains and Midwest. The world ‘pop’ was introduced by Robert Southey, the British Poet Laureate (1774-1843), to whom we also owe the word ‘autobiography’, among others. In 1812, he wrote: A new manufactory of a nectar, between soda-water and ginger-beer, and called pop, because ‘pop goes the cork’ when it is drawn. Even though it was introduced by a Poet Laureate, the term ‘pop’ is considered unsophisticated by some, because it is onomatopaeic.

soda: prevalent in the Northeast, greater Miami, the area in Missouri and Illinois surrounding St Louis and parts of northern California. ‘Soda’ derives from ‘soda-water’ (also called club soda, carbonated or sparkling water or seltzer). It’s produced by dissolving carbon dioxide gas in plain water, a procedure developed by Joseph Priestly in the latter half of the 18th century. The fizziness of soda-water caused the term ‘soda’ to be associated with later, similarly carbonated soft drinks.

Other, lesser-used terms include ‘dope’ in the Carolinas and ‘tonic’ in and around Boston, both fading in popularity. Other generic terms for soft drinks outside the US include ‘pop’ (Canada), ‘mineral’ (Ireland), ‘soft drink’ (New Zealand and Australia). The term ‘soft drink’, finally, arose to contrast said beverages with hard (i.e. alcoholic) drinks.

Life Lessons of Drum Corps

I just came across this old article of mine that I had published in the May 2000 edition of Drum Corps World, and thought I would repost it here:

In the mid-70s, I marched in the baritone line of the Mark Twain Cadets.  The Cadets were a mid-sized corps from Elmira Heights, NY that competed primarily in upstate New York and Pennsylvania.  Like other corps, then and now, we had our share of volunteers.  Most of those volunteers were parents of fellow corps members.  "S," for example, was the father of "D," a fellow baritone player, and "K," a guard member.  S was a large, muscular man who drove Bus 6.  His was a familiar face to all the corps members.  While there was a constant turnover of drivers for Bus 5 (the bus I rode), S was the bus driver for Bus 6.  Week in and week out, for at least the five years I was involved with the corps, S helped get us to where we needed to go.

While S was accepted and respected by the corps members, "Z" was not.  Z was our equipment truck driver, and she received her malicious nickname because of her weight.  Despite the fact that she put in as much time as S (perhaps even more), she wasn't respected by the corps members.  One year, the corps started asking for dues.  The amount was nominal, being only one dollar per week.  When some of the corps members realized that it would be Z who would collect the money, they told others to bring their dues in pennies.  By this, they wanted to make Z's collection bag to weigh as much as possible.  Had everyone in the corps done that, the weight of all the pennies would have been considerable.

One day, my dad overheard me make some disparaging remarks about Z.  (Back then, I talked and acted just as stupidly as any other teenager in the corps.)  That day, my dad drove home an important lesson:  Z wasn't working for the corps because she had to, but because she wanted to.  That lesson was reinforced in the summer of 1978.  By this time, the Mark Twain Cadets had merged with the Grenadiers of Broome County, NY to form the Empire State Express.  The night of July 27, we traveled from the southern tier of New York to Lynn, Massachusetts to compete in the World Open.  We were the very first corps to perform that morning, in the Open Class prelims, so there wasn't any opportunity for us to prepare for the show, other than to get into our  uniforms and warm up.  (Despite this disadvantage -- or perhaps because of it -- the Express scored high enough to be in the Open Class finals that night.)  After our prelim performance, I was struck by the sight of Z, putting our equipment back into the truck.  There she was, working very early on a Friday morning, after driving several hundred miles in the dead of night.  She didn't have to be there.  She could have been home, sleeping in her bed, back in Elmira.  It was then that I truly realized her dedication to the corps.  She had sacrificed her sleep, her time with her family, her vacation time, and her money to be with us on tour.  How many other parents were working with her to help the corps?  Damn few.  And yet we treated her with a lack of respect few other adults would have put up with.

I would hope that the corps members of today already realize the need to respect and accept others as they are.  I can see where it would be easy, while attending camp or during the grind of tour, to take the non-marching personnel of the corps for granted or to treat them with less respect than they deserve.  For the non-marching personnel of each corps, whether they be the corps management, the instructional staff, or any of the volunteers, are just as important to the corps as the marching members are - and maybe even more so.

I haven't seen Z since 1978, and I have no idea if she's still involved with the drum corps activity.  However, should she read this article and recognize herself in it, I hope she will forgive me for any pain I may have caused her when I was an immature teenager who should have known better.

Maynard Ferguson: 1928 - 2006

From Allah (swt) do we come, and unto Allah do we return. I'm sorry to hear that Maynard Ferguson has passed away. He was 78.

For those of us in the drum corps activity, Maynard was a major inspiration. My corps in 1978, the Empire State Express, played Maynard's arrangement of "Scheherazade," from the "New Vintage" album. It's a great song, and very typical of Maynard's style, with the elongated, park-and-blow double high C. On the recording, Maynard holds that double high C for - oh - 45 seconds or so. Our lead soprano could only hold it for about 20 seconds at the most. Theories abounded as to how Maynard could hold the note for so long, the most popular being "circular breathing," where Maynard could somehow both breathe in and play the trumpet simultaneously. The article linked above suggests that Maynard credited yoga for his ability to sustain his notes.

Maynard: You will be missed.