Website
That Which We Call a Coke, By Any Other Name, Would Taste As Fizzy
by Clay Staggs
I love the internet. You can find literally anything.
Here’s a site where you can actually see a county-by-county breakdown, over the entire United States, of the way in which folks refer to Coke (i.e., Coke, soda, pop, etc.).
How does anyone have the time to do this?
Posted by Clay Staggs at June 18, 2008 09:42 AM
That, my friend, appears to be cultural geography and it seems to be someone’s class project. I was never that creative.
It appears a large number of folks from Fayette County call it something other. I wonder what they call it? Can anyone from Fayette County chime in?
When I was a boy, I had an uncle who called it “belly-wash.” I guess that falls under “Other.” (G)
That study (as well as a few others similar to it) are actually very interesting to look at from a linguistic point of view. We spent a day or two on them this past semester in my linguistics class. You can see the people through the names. For example, look at Florida, and you can see where the people in different areas of Florida probably came from. It shows all sorts of cultural boundries. There is a lot I could talk baout related to it, but Ill just leave it at saying that it is actually a worthwhile study, and not just some useless but interesting time-passer.