soda_pop epitome of incomprehensibility raze was writing about regional word differences on "depanneur" and one of those was "soda" vs. "pop." Which struck me as surprisingly American (it's okay, some of my best fathers are American) because I thought the commonest Canadian term was "soft drink." But maybe not, or not anymore. When Jacqueline, the sociolinguistics prof, asked the class to choose between soft drink pop soda the majority of them raised their hands at "soda." Jacqueline would say "soft drink" the most. So would I. (About Me for future dialectologists: F & AFAB, born in 1988, L1 English L2 French, ethnically various whitenesses, grew up in the Montreal suburb of Dorval; mom from neighbouring Pointe Claire, dad from Maine, U.S.A.; between them my parents have six university degrees but never made more than $60K a year together...oh god, it is my fate to be overeducated and poor, no, not poor, this is not poverty, Poverty of the Stimulus is an argument for Universal Grammar and where was I again?) Oh yes, soda pop. Less commonly, I would put soda and pop together. It sounded good, plus I came up with a rhyme that would, in writing, start first with numbers - 50 40 30 20 - and then I'd fill in the letters - 50da 40p 30¢ a d20p to make "soda pop, thirty cents a drop." My childhood usual was Sprite or 7-Up, but my rare favourite was Mountain Dew: I first tasted it at eight, nine, or ten, the age when I found a crayon called Purple Mountain Majesty and didn't know the phrase was from an American song. "Mountain Dew" sounded like a poem, like something delicate and natural, however screamingly yellow-green it was. Years later, my dad commented, "I know why that was your favourite. It has a ton of caffeine." At least it wasn't 30¢ a drop. Poverty of the Stimulant! 230916 ... raze oh man. i forgot all about "soft drink"! is it just me, or has that always felt like a bit of a misnomer? carbonation seems to give a drink a "hard" quality. or at least i've long thought of it that way in the space where my tongue touches my brain. i would think of it in softer terms if it were flat. like the so-called orange soda at mcdonald's, which never housed a single bubble in all the times i was foolish enough to try it expecting a fizzier outcome. i drank just about everything under the sun at one time or another, from clearly canadian sparkling water to the shabby coke imposter known as iga cola (thanks, mom). sprite was often my go-to in restaurants. but my absolute favourite was schweppes raspberry ginger ale. i think i would have bathed in the stuff just to have an excuse to drink more of it. it was a sad day when they inexplicably stopped carrying it anywhere in this city. i owe nr an immense debt of gratitude for smuggling me a bottle of that precious nectar something like eighteen years ago. i wonder if i'd still like it now, or if it would just taste weird to me. also, "purple mountain majesty" is a phenomenal crayon name, whatever the source. that's so evocative i can almost see it. and if you came up with that rhyme when you were a kid, colour me gobsmacked (and majestic). 230916 ... e_o_i Hey, thanks! I don't think I wrote it when I was a small kid - about sixteen, maybe? It was one of the things I'd write/doodle in sketchpads. But yes, I enjoyed reading your memories. Raspberry ginger ale sounds delicious. I had a blackberry version of Canada Dry once, limited-time-only sort of deal. Weird but yum. I think soda was called a "soft drink" because "hard" drinks had alcohol? It does seem a misnomer compared to, say, smoothies' usually smooth smoothness. Fizziness has bite, zing. Carbonation itself imparts a slight bitterness. 230923 what's it to you? who go blather from