Linguist Charts How U.S. Regions Came to Say Soda, Pop or Coke

A linguistics analysis published by The Conversation and highlighted by PBS News traces how Americans came to use three rival generic terms for carbonated soft drinks—“soda,” “pop” and “coke.” The study links the variation to the 19th-century rise of soda fountains, regional migration patterns and the outsized cultural influence of Coca-Cola in the South. Carbonated water was first marketed as a health tonic in the late 1700s and reached U.S. pharmacies by 1806, when Yale chemist Benjamin Sillman installed the nation’s first soda fountain in New Haven. “Soda,” derived from the sodium salts once added for medicinal effect, spread through the Northeast and later the West with migrating settlers. The Midwest adopted “pop” after bottled ginger-pop drinks became popular in the 1840s, the name echoing the cork’s release sound. In the South, Coca-Cola’s 1886 debut in Atlanta turned “coke”—lower-case—into a catch-all, despite the company’s later efforts to protect its trademark. Although the terminology differs, Americans’ appetite for sweetened fizz is nationwide: the average person drinks almost 40 gallons a year. Linguists say the debate over what to call it is likely to persist as a marker of regional identity as long as the country keeps consuming the beverage.