A friend noted on a mailing list:``Oh yes. I knew that! Texas is the one place where they call Dr. Pepper "coke." (Coke being generic for "soft drink," you know!).''Actually it's pretty much the entire South, not just Texas.This provided no end of fun in our dorm at Ga Tech, where a surprisingly diverse group of people became friends. When one of the southerners was going for a soft drink, they'd ask if anyone else wanted a coke. Then they would ask what kind, and the arguments would start. Especially since of the selections available in our machine, the northerners inevitably wanted Coke, anyway.
Or one of the northerners would be going for
And the arguments would start.
- a soda, pop, or soda pop, and a southerner would say, "a what"?, or
- a Coke, and head off, and some southerner who'd said they wanted one, too, would get all excited and yell, "Hey, I didn't say what kind yet!"
Note that I differentiate between Coke, the brand, and coke, the generic term. Coke is, of course, a trademark of the Coca Cola Bottling Company, but almost nobody in the south cares other than employees, stockholders, and lawyers of and for said CCBC.
Why? Probably because Coke was the first soft drink. And for years, the only soft drink, at least in the South. Everything else was just a pretender or a Johnny Come Lately, or worst of all, a carpetbagger.1
[1] "Yankee" may or may not be an insult. "Carpetbagger" inevitably is. In fact, for a lot of folks, it's as much spat as said.
Last updated: 29 May 2001Copyright 2001 Miles O'Neal, Round Rock, TX. All rights reserved. Miles O'Neal <roadkills.r.us@XYZZY.gmail.com> [remove the "XYZZY." to make things work!] c/o RNN / 1705 Oak Forest Dr / Round Rock, TX / 78681-1514