My Favorite Coke is Pepsi

Alan McConchie has created the Pop vs. Soda page, an Internet database that maps the regional differences in how Americans refer to soft drinks.

Looking at the large number of people in the south who call all sodas "coke," regardless of brand, doesn't that suggest one of the world's most lucrative trademarks has become a generic term and should lose its protected status?

Aspirin, cellophane, escalator, nylon, and thermos all were once trademarks lost by their companies through generic use.

On BusinessPundit, a southern cokehead named Alan Ruff writes:

... when I first moved to Iowa from North Carolina, people looked at me with the weirdest face when I would say, "I'll have a Coke, make it a Dr. Pepper."

Jargon · 2004/11/29 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

People from the north refer to soft drinks as "soda pops"

#1 · markk · 2004/11/29

Please no more maps with dots on them. We just got over the election wars. Please ont the cola wars too. (just kidding.

We've got an older map of this up at work. Someting of a demographic change is the big "soda" spot smack dab in the middle. It wasn't there a year ago. I guess it shows a movement of vocabulary? Cool stuff.

#2 · Jeremy · 2004/11/29