What Do You Call a Soft Drink?

I came across this interesting study on Digg today. Apparently somebody at East Central University in Oklahoma asked over 120,000 people in 2003 how they refer to a soft drink. It turns out the answers are extremely regional. Since I have lived in the North, South and West, I find myself equally at ease referring to the beverage as a soda, pop or coke...even though my preferred drink is Diet Mountain Dew.


If you would like to go to the actual map, click here. If you do so, you can click on any state and it will give you a list of the counties and a count of the actual responses to the survey.

I'm really interested in the "other" category. I'm can't think of many other terms that are used to refer to soft drinks...except for one. I vividly remember my 6th grade gym teacher who frequently ended class a few minutes early so we would have time to buy a "sody water" to quench our thirst.