Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:22:53 EDT

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: Student Q: pop/soda/coke/cola



SUpporting what Lynne says below, when I left my native N.Y.C. to attend

college in Rochester in the early 1960's, one of the sources of linguistic

culture shock I experienced (besides the open-o vowel, rather than Õaþ, used

for 'corridor', 'moral, 'forest' and the fact that 'salads' were opposed to

liquids and gases rather than to sandwiches and soups) was the use of 'pop' for

what I thought (and still think) of as soda. Rochester is southwest of

Watertown, and both are far beyond the Gothamite sphere of influence.



--Larry

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

rima said--



I'm confused too. Growing up in NYC, I only ever heard/said "soda." Where

in NY state is the boundary between "pop" and "soda"?



since my cousins in watertown say "pop", i'm under the impression

that the boundary is more easterly than dale says, but i think

there's also a north-south thing going. i doubt the boundary is

straight north-south, but instead might be made crooked by the

upstate-downstate divide. (i know we've done upstate/downstate here

before, but what i mean to say is that perhaps the (eastern) southern

tier and hudson valley areas are more influenced by nyc, thereby

messing up attempts to make an east-west classification of the words,

since north and south are relevant to the state's linguistic

geography.)



however, many would claim nyc is a different planet from most of

nys.



lynne



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