Every time we go visit my wife's family in the midwest something really odd bothers me. It's not the red-state blue state thing, rather it's something I find much more provoking. It's how they call soda, "pop". Maybe because I grew up with (normal) people who called it soda, or maybe because pop sounds like something out of the 1800's era when people said things like golly gee willikers, supper, and till the fields. I think a good compromise is just do what the south does, call everything a Coke. Sprite, Mountain Dew, Orange whatever, it's all a Coke to them. Either way, I'm teaching my daughter to call it soda - and to drink something else, like water instead.
