There are a few topics that will instantly divide a room in the Midwest: IU vs. Purdue, whether chili should have noodles in it, and what you call a carbonated beverage.
Some folks call it pop. Others swear by soda. And a certain subset—mostly Southern, but with a few converts here in Indiana—calls it all Coke, even if they mean Sprite.
I grew up in a “pop” household. You opened the fridge and asked, “You got any pop?” Not soda. Not soft drink. Not cola. Just pop. Short, punchy, Midwest efficient. It pops, you drink it, end of story.
But then you travel. Maybe you go to college. Maybe you spend a weekend in Cincinnati. Suddenly you’re surrounded by people asking if you want a “soda,” and you wonder if you’ve accidentally wandered into a pharmacy from the 1940s. Soda? Who says soda? Is this a root beer float situation? Am I supposed to be wearing a paper hat?
Then you head down south and ask for a Dr Pepper, and someone says, “What kind of Coke you want?”
“Um… the Dr Pepper kind?”
It’s like walking into a parallel universe where everything carbonated is Coke until proven otherwise.
Some people try to end the debate by using the neutral “soft drink,” which is technically correct but sounds like something you’d say at a corporate luncheon. “Would you care for a soft drink?” It lacks soul. No one ever had a childhood memory over a soft drink.
I remember cracking open an orange Faygo at a little league game, wiping off the dust with my shirt, and feeling like summer had officially started. That wasn’t soda. That was pop, in all its sugary, fizzing, slightly-warm-from-the-cooler glory.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what you call it—as long as you respect the ice-to-beverage ratio and know better than to call RC Cola “off-brand.” (It’s royalty. It’s right there in the name.)
But if you’re ever in a debate about it, just ask yourself one thing:
When you were a kid, and someone handed you a styrofoam cup and said, “Want a—?”
What word came next?
That’s your answer.
And it’s the right one.
Even if it’s wrong.