I have to admit this Amazon searching thing is pretty catchy once you get started. More great Chicago novels:

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair:

"Little Sebastijonas, had been wandering about oblivious to all things, holding turned up over his mouth a bottle of liquid known as "pop," pink-colored, ice-cold, and delicious."

(Only reference to pop or that kind of soda or coke in the entire book. Note that it's a three-year-old drinking it. Note that the term has to be explained to the reader. Note that the guy writing the scathing expose of one food industry describes another in almost ad copy-like terms, apparently impressed by the novelty of a soft drink that's brightly-colored and actually cold. I have seen the future-- and it's delicious!)

The Pit: A Novel of Chicago, by Frank Norris:

No references to pop, soda or coke.

The Story of Mary MacLane and Other Stories, by Mary MacLane:

"A delicate aroma of cocktails and whiskey-and- soda hangs over even the four-in-hands and automobiles of the upper crust."

A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago, by Ben Hecht:

"'Wilson Avenue,' he thought, as he walked beside her chatter. 'The wise, brazen little virgins who shimmy and toddle, but never pay the fiddler. She's it. Selling her ankles for a glass of pop and her eyes for a fox trot. Unhuman little piece. A cross between a macaw and a marionette."

Jennie Gerhardt, by Theodore Dreiser:

"'You know, Lester,' said Letty, by way of helping him to his confession--the maid had brought tea for her and some brandy and soda for him, and departed-- "that I have been hearing a lot of things about you since I've been back in this country.'"

The Man With the Golden Arm, by Nelson Algren:

"Antek ambled over to where a girl, with a bottle of cream soda on the table before her and a shopping bag in her hand, sat waiting for some drunk with his head on the table. Husband, brother, father or friend, she was waiting for him to come to his senses and it looked like a long, long wait."

The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow:

"Kotzie got me a relief spot behind the counter as apprentice soda jerk. I was thankful, for Simon had graduated from high school and was cut off from Charity."

"The meals were of amazing character altogether and of huge quantity-- Anna was a strong believer in eating. Bowls of macaroni without salt or pepper or butter or sauce, brain stews or lung stews, calves' foot jelly with bits of calves' hair and sliced egg, cold pickled fish, crumb-stuffed tripes, canned corn chowder, and big bottles of orange pop."

What do I conclude from all this? Real men drink alcohol, and soda either goes with alcohol or it's in reference to a place where you serve sodas, not pop. When a reference to pop comes up, it's either in reference to a kid or someone else who isn't mature enough to be a hard drinker, or, as in the Bellow, to the immature, loutish pleasures of the uneducated poor. When, I wonder, did "pop" begin to lose those connotations (not that, I would say, it entirely has even today?) When did soda and pop become the same thing-- with the death of the soda fountain proper?

Mike,

It's my understanding that "pop" refers to what some might call a soft drink or coke, while the term soda, when used in the context of "whiskey and soda" or (name a booze) and soda refers to a specific mixer, namely club soda.

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,760,000 for coke soda.
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,020,000 for coke pop.
Results 1 - 10 of about 427,000 for coke tonic.

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,840,000 for pepsi soda.
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,880,000 for pepsi pop.
Results 1 - 10 of about 150,000 for pepsi tonic.


Conclusion

People who say pop prefer coke, and are therefore cooler. Or people who drink coke say pop, and are therefore cooler. Either way, people who say pop and drink coke are coolest of all. Honest.

Edit: One of my ex-girlfriends, Savannah-GA born and raised, used "cocola". In her honor:

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,680 for cocola coke.

two things:

I (mostly) grew up in St. Louis, and used "soda" to refer to all soft drinks. When I moved to Chicago I discovered that all my Chicago friends used "pop" to refer to the same beverages. I remember thinking that pop sounded so old-timey, like something you'd get at the soda fountain, and then immediately realized how bizarre it was that "pop" and "soda fountain" seemed to go together in their quaintness (to my mind), but somehow "soda" by itself (without the "fountain" addendum) sounded normal and modern.

On a somewhat different note, I was at work a few years ago when a co-worker asked me if I wanted him to pick up a "Cokamacola" when he went down to the convenience store. I said yes, whereupon a customer in our store at the time said "Ooh, is that one of those new microbrew colas?" I think he was a little embarrassed when we explained that it was just a Coke pronounced a la Homer Simpson...

I grew up hearing that, too.

As well as "R-uh-C." I swear that I was in high school before I examined a bottle closely and realized that it was R.C. (Royal Crown), not R.O.C. The Southern tongue turned the consonant "R" into a consonant/vowel.

So where would Yoo-Hoo fit: soda or pop or coke or cocola?

That was my preferred drink with Moon Pies, as chronicled in an essay I wrote in the mid-80s for the late Cuisine magazine. I'll scan and link to it when I find a copy.

Cheers,
Wade

Hello all,

I’ve been out of town so am just now reading through this long thread from start to finish.

Mike G: I’m impressed that you so generously publish the data which shows that you were wrong in your original conjecture (that soda was the early generic term for soft drinks in Chicago). Rather, your citations are a nice support to Antonius’s reading of the dialect map, that pop was most likely the widespread generic term here early on. That’s how I (as another linguist) read the map too, and it’s nice to see the textual support.

Now, can you point the search engine towards some novels written in Milwaukee and St. Louis, the two oddities in the dialect map?

Amata

Hmm, Milwaukee or St. Louis novels, heck if I know of any (at least earlier than Jonathan Franzen's The 27th City).

I think the situation appears much odder now than it used to. I mean, whatever other issues it may have had, the urban bar areas/rural non-bar areas hypothesis at least seemed fairly clear in how it would have worked.

It's much stranger to me that cities, not that far apart and similar in many ways, would basically mean two different things by the term "soda" at the same time-- IF they did. Now, there is a little logic in how soda and pop get blurred, since the drinks which eventually became bottled pop often had their start mixed to order at soda fountains (you can still visit places in tourist towns where they do this-- I had a hand-mixed soft drink like that in either Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge, Tennessee). (For that matter, the Johnny Rockets chain still adds cherry or vanilla by hand to make cherry Coke or vanilla Coke, rather than serve the premixed versions.) But it's still odd that two places as similar as Chicago and St. Louis then would go in opposite directions, if they did so at the same time, which I think the maps suggest, but don't prove. (Do you think they provide firm evidence for what was the case 50 or 100 years ago? Or just the reasonable supposition that if they show 80%+ support and an even regional spread pattern, the usage probably dates back that far?)

The question now-- which we need those great early 20th century St. Louis novels to answer-- is, how far back does St. Louis, or Milwaukee, or whatever go in calling pop soda? Were they really calling it soda back when Chicago, long ago, was enforcing a clear distinction between pop and soda? Or did they too call it pop for a time but make a switch to soda at some later date-- which would be a little more "logical" but really hard to explain by any historical means such as immigration, since St. Louis has steadily lost population and influence over the last century?

I need a grant!

We seem to be getting down to the nitty gritty of these terms. Of the book quotes, the interesting standout was "cream soda" -- that's never referred to as pop: in my memory, there's always been cream soda.

For my great grandmother, there was only "rrrred pop" and "ghrrreeen pop" (the only brand that was kosher in the 60s).

On the other hand, I occasionally use the term "orange soda" but "grape pop" or "strawberry pop."

Curiouser and curiouser.

Mike:

From your responses to what I've written above, I get the impression you really didn't read or consider my words quite so carefully as I would have liked (yes, I know I'm long-winded but the previous posts were pretty short compared to this one). Then again, maybe I wasn't sufficiently clear. I'll try one more time.

Antonius wrote:Now, the limited claim I make is based on a certain considerable amount of experience in dealing with problems of this sort. But it is simply a reading of a very limited set of data. Real research and the solution to historical problems comes through exhaustive investigation of as many facts as seem to be relevant and the solution one arrives at, one should arrive at honestly, i.e., not skewing the things to fit one's preconceived theory. I don't know what all the sociohistorical and philological data would point to, but I do know how to read a dialect map. And I don't want to make any far-reaching or do[g]matic claim on the basis of what I know at this point.

And I repeat: is it possible Chicago was 'soda' country and switched: yes, but your bar-cocktail theory so far doesn't convince me that that is the most likely scenario.* But it seems to me far more likely that there was a period of variable usage and/or usage with more or less sharp sociolinguistic (rather than just geographic) splits in distribution ('soda pop' yielding 'pop' in some places universally and in others among some social strata, the same for 'soda'). How the sociolinguistic split tended to be levelled out may have differed in different cities, depending on various local factors. Perhaps the inmigration in Chicago tipped the balance in favour of 'pop' or perhaps there are other fac[to]rs less apparent, while other sets of local factors caused St Louis and Milwaukee to opt for the other form (see, for example, Rob's suggestion above, which is something worth considering). A more nuanced and socially complex development is more likely than a completely simple one. But without the evidence, it's all speculation (though if I were to pursue this topic seriously, that's the direction I would look in).

Now, beyond that, I'll add that the idea of complexity and variable usage is something I suggested hereabove, expressly offering that as what I think was the reality of the situation -- something which I surmise on the basis of experience but for which I do not have direct evidence at the moment -- and consciously allowing that also as a way by which your (as stated) implausible bar-cocktail theory might have some validity. Now, it seems you embrace my conjecture concerning complexity on the basis of the evidence from Studs Lonigan while simultaneously trying to find ways to dismiss all my specific suggestions.† Okay. Actually, with regard to your Amazon searches, excellent. I'm always in favour of research and happy to see useful data (see further below).

If you wish to argue against the above quoted, quite measured and decidedly non-polemical statement from my earlier post, feel free to do so, but I really don't think there's much to argue against.

*

† Some final points:
1) In the exposition of the bar-cocktail theory, you seem to have lost track of the core issue: the issue is the distribtution of terms which are used in a general fashion to refer to carbonated soft drinks, and nowadays that is pretty much those in bottled or canned format. N.B. VI's note above: "We [Chicagoans] have always used soda to refer to a drink with ice cream and syrup but NOT as a bottled beverage."
Incidentally, as Amata noted, the evidence you cite from Studs Lonigan and the subsequent evidence posted yesterday afternoon doesn't in any way support your bar-cocktail theory but goes along with the idea that 'pop' was the widespread or most common generic term here for carbonated, flavoured soft drinks, with 'soda' reserved for the specialised meaning VI notes above. What you seemed to be suggesting was that Chicago, with its putative cocktail culture, used 'soda' as the general term and then switched to 'pop' as the result of migration from rural areas. That strikes me as quite unlikely (more likely is that Chicago was a centre from which use of 'pop' spread to the surrounding areas). 'Pop' is almost certainly 'old' here, as suggested by the dialect map and increasingly confirmed by the literary references you supply.
Everyone presumably had 'soda' in the context of fountain service, or at least so it seems to me. The issue of a generic term (especially for pre-prepared, bottled drinks) is obviously closely related but probably secondary.

2) You are pointedly dismissive of my suggestion regarding the occurrence of 'soda' in the data for Chicago in the poll. But here you simplify what I say to the point that it starts to seem absurd (see quote under pt. 4 below). Is this rhetorical strategy or a failure to appreciate the argument in its entirety?
The noteworthy but minor usage of 'soda' in Chicago by some speakers as the generic term for bottled, carbonated soft drinks could, as I suggest, very plausibly be accounted for by the presence of inmigrants (and their children) from the St Louis and Milwaukee 'soda' zones AND inmigrants (and their children) from the Northeast 'soda' zone AND the crucial reinforcement of media influence (in which 'soda' is surely the basic term used), a point which in no way negates the possibility that Chicago may have always had some variation since the days when the terms 'pop' and 'soda' were first popularised in the generic sense.
That there are noteworthy numbers of folks from Boston, New York and surrounding bits of the Northeast in Chicago is obvious. And these people are surely more often members of the strata of society that are likely to be using computers and answering dialect polls than members of the blue collar and less computer oriented sectors of the Chicago population (thus perhaps skewing the poll data so that 'soda' is more strongly represented there than it actually is in the general Chicago population -- note the request by the poll's author to try to mitigate this problem).
Or do you really think that Chicago is such a minor city that people from the Northeast (and St Louis and Milwaukee), in the ever more mobile social and economic context of modern American society, aren't drawn here? That is likely the case for small cities, such as Joliet but surely not for Chicago. At least in the circles I move in, inmigrants (and children of inmigrants) from the Northeast -- as well as from St Louis, downstate Illinois, Milwaukee and eastern Wisconsin -- are hardly a rarity. Such people, especially with the support from the media/standard, can without doubt play a rôle in spreading an alien or traditionally minor variant form.
The media influence, as I and others have noted, is real and significant. As I offered above as an example, 'tonic', the old Boston area term is clearly now maintained by only a minority, with 'soda' apparently the increasingly common form used there.

3) As I have said a couple of times above and subsequently was echoed by Amata, what is from a dialectological standpoint the most striking and interesting aspect of the map and data is the existence of the St Louis and Milwaukee islands. That they have been expansive, clearly winning over the surrounding countryside is not at all surprising and I am fairly confident in being able to suggest the likely reasons for that expansiveness. The question is when and why those two cities went against the Northern Midland norm.

4)

What historical data can you glean from this map, really? Yes, 80% for something suggests that it probably goes back a ways... but at the same time you're suggesting that a wave of East Coasters in very recent history is responsible for what "soda" usage there is today. If you can have that kind of influence in a short time, how can you be sure that something else has really been so established for so long?

Not specific data, of course, but certainly general historical developments. Yes, indeed, one can -- to a certain degree -- surmise history from such a map as the one for 'soda/pop/coke' IF one is equipped with a general understanding of dialectology and sociolinguistics and at least a basic knowledge of the dialect landscape of the area in question.
But note well that I consistently speak in terms of degrees of likelihood or probability; without careful investigation of the facts, I only offer measured suggestions based on background knowledge and experience.
If nothing else, I hope this thread has shown that even a relatively very minor issue in historical linguistics such as this is more often than not actually a rather complicated problem which demands a lot of research and informed analysis. And as I said in an earlier post, the sort of cultural factors you have brought up do need to be considered as part of the complex mix. But in the end, the specialised linguistic analysis cannot be wanting.

*

I need a grant!

If you do apply, maybe I'll be one of the reviewers.

Cin cin.

Antonius

It doesn't cite its sources, but according to (what seems to be) the leading etymological site, etymonline.com:

tonic used for a medicine (as all of these concoctions purported to be in their early days) dates to 1799

pop to mean "carbonated flavored beverage" is from 1812

soda to mean carbonated water is from 1802, but the first record of the phrase soda pop is from 1873

Also, my Merriam-Webster doesn't list dates for specific entries, but it does note that "pop" was used as a synonym for "a shot of alcohol."

No geographical info available there, but I do note that "tonic" was the earliest word. (That aside, Antonius, I gave up on that long ago, years before I moved here. But then I hardly drink the stuff anymore. I'm pretty much a seltzer [1741] drinker these days.)

Bob S. wrote:
Also, my Merriam-Webster doesn't list dates for specific entries, but it does note that "pop" was used as a synonym for "a shot of alcohol."

Bob:

Thanks for the info. Note too that in one of the passages MikeG cites, there seems to be a play on the double use (pop=soda/ pop=shot) you report above.

No geographical info available there, but I do note that "tonic" was the earliest word. (That aside, Antonius, I gave up on that long ago, years before I moved here. But then I hardly drink the stuff anymore. I'm pretty much a seltzer [1741] drinker these days.)

I wonder whether the success of tonic in Boston is related to a closer cultural link to England (was tonic the basic term in merry old in the day, I wonder).

Do you have a sense of any social or geographic distribution of 'soda' vs. 'tonic' in greater Boston back when you were growing up and on beyond that?

Antonius

Antonius wrote:I wonder whether the success of tonic in Boston is related to a closer cultural link to England (was tonic the basic term in merry old in the day, I wonder).

Do you have a sense of any social or geographic distribution of 'soda' vs. 'tonic' in greater Boston back when you were growing up and on beyond that?

I can't really say that I do. Even as teenagers, we knew it was a regional usage, but I can't speak to much beyond that. Since I'm back there tomorrow through Wednesday, though, I'll see if I can pick up any cues.

Bob S. wrote:I can't really say that I do. Even as teenagers, we knew it was a regional usage, but I can't speak to much beyond that. Since I'm back there tomorrow through Wednesday, though, I'll see if I can pick up any cues.

Bon voyage and happy holidays (m.c./h.h. etc.).

Antonius

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091699.htm
More history, including Ginger Ale in 1851, but they claim "pop" comes from 1861.

My theory that it has to do with advertising isn't helped by wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fo ... ng_slogans
as none of the beverage slogans mention soda or pop.

From the Soft Drinks Companion on Amazon, p 168,
link
claims that "soda pop" followed the invention of the crown cap closure in 1892, but sadly goes into no more detail than, "some people referred to CSDs as soda, while others called it pop."

So at least we can narrow our search for origins to the last 113 years.

soda, pop, soda-pop, tonic....I just finished my last paper and sent it off. My seemingly neverending semester has finally ended and I'm going to have a drink!

Cheers all!

Pop
Soda
Tonic
Soda-pop

To this list I'd like to add, "charged water," which is what my parents and grandparents called seltzer or club soda in Minneapolis. It was either a drink in itself, a component of a fountain drink with flavored syrup or ice cream and syrup, or a mixer with alcohol. (My father said he'd never heard it referred to as seltzer until he moved to New York in the 1950's.)

As to the use of pop vs. soda as a class marker, all I know is that I drew snickers from my college classmates during freshman orientation (at an eastern college) when I referred to a Coca-Cola as a "pop" and not a soda or a tonic. I caught on fast and rounded out those nasal vowels as well. But people still ask whether I think the accents in "Fargo" were really authentic.

Antonius,

Thank you for the helpful bolding, but I find that the words remain exactly the same and thus, so do my points in response.

Mike

Josephine wrote:To this list I'd like to add, "charged water," which is what my parents and grandparents called seltzer or club soda in Minneapolis. It was either a drink in itself, a component of a fountain drink with flavored syrup or ice cream and syrup, or a mixer with alcohol. (My father said he'd never heard it referred to as seltzer until he moved to New York in the 1950's.)

Technically, there's a difference between seltzer (aka soda water, carbonated water and sparkling water) and club soda. Club soda has salt and/or sodium bicarbonate added.

Also, "seltzer," "soda water" and "carbonated water" imply artificially carbonated products, whereas "sparkling water" can be naturally effervescent mineral water. And to me, it doesn't seem like "seltzer" unless it comes in a an old-fashioned siphon bottle.

Well, despite my efforts to egg the members of my family into taking a stand, the closest I got was my sister's observation that she hadn't used the word "tonic" since she was a kid. I suspect it's not only a regionalism but also a dying one.

And I passed through Coffey County, but couldn't persuade my wife that it was worth stopping to take a quick survey.

Re: Charged water

I spent some part of my misspent youth drinking up on the Iron Range in Minnesota, in pole buildings where the heat was inadequate but the liquor was plentiful. As a new adult, I of course emulated at times the drinks I had grown up around and didn't find offensive, and learned in short order that what my Detroit grandfather called a highball (made, of course, with Canadian whisky), and what on the East Coast was requested as whisky and soda, needed to be requested in towns like Bovey and Coleraine as whisky and charged water.

Not sure that adds much to the discussion, other than the fact that when asking for soda with whisky on the east coast, no sweet pop was proferred.

Mike G wrote:Thank you for the helpful bolding, but I find that the words remain exactly the same and thus, so do my points in response.

Mike,

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Happy New Year.

Antonius

LAZ wrote:

stevez wrote:I wonder if the pop/soda/Coke borders roughly approximate the sack/bag borders or if that is a completely diffenent distinction.

There's a sack/bag map here, which puts "sack" sayers in a small minority.

I was in Kenosha today where I found a previously undetected pocket of *sack instead of bag* users:



I must admit the trivia dust bunnies really multiply in my mind from reading this forum.

Regards,

In Las Vegas yesterday, I overheard someone request a "paper sack" into which she wanted to place a purchased item. Hm! Not implying there's a "sack saying" population in L.V, as she had a clear Midwest twang. I felt queerly at home and disoriented, as I've pretty much given up on asking for anything other than a bag in stores in Chicago (something perverse in me just wants to go and keep asking for "sacks" at Jewel).

My experience in Georgia and Carolinas is exactly the same as Wade's:

"We better fill up the cooler with some Coke. Everybody's gonna be thirsty when they get back from the bird hunt."

"I best go to the store then."

"Naw, just get them Sprites and Doctor Peppers from outta the garage. That'll do."

"You be sure to wash out that cooler with a hose pipe first. It's nasty."

HI,

I love having reasons to bring old posts back to the top again.

I found this article on The Real Reason Why We Call it a ‘Bubbler’ in Wisconsin (And Who Else Does Too).

It’s really quite simple. We call drinking fountains bubblers for the same reason everyone calls tissues Kleenex and inline skates Roller Blades – good branding.

The twist is that – with bubblers – it just happened to be good regional branding.

Back in 1889, a man named Harlan Huckleby designed the very first bubbler. I know, the name Harlan Huckleby sounds made up, but it was 1889 and that’s what names were like.
bubbler in madison

There were certainly other types of drinking fountains in existence, but Huckleby’s design was unique. It had a spout that shot a little stream of water about an inch in the air so people could slurp it up.

The device was picked up and patented by what was then called Kohler Water Works and today is the plumbing fixture giant Kohler Company of Kohler, Wisconsin. Kohler also gave the new product its name and The Bubbler was born.

Bubbler is referred to a few times in this old thread, which is as good a reason to attach it here. Why start a new thread when an old thread with lots of interesting thoughts can be viewed fresh again!

Regards,