it's not the way my mother talks, it's not the people that she mocks

[causeways]

So a hugely disproportionate number of my friends out here are from Southern California. Only a third of the kids at my school are native Californians, but within my group of friends it's like, basically all of them. And for whatever reason, the past few days have had the common theme of, "Let's tell me everything I am doing strangely (i.e. WRONG

Comments

[setissma]

It's I-whatever. I'd have called it the I-10, because you know! It's I-80! And stuff!

You know what bothers me? Like. People who say pop instead of soda. It's, as far as I can tell, ONLY a Michigan thing, but everyone in Michigan says pop, and because I'm originally from Florida and my dad/etc are from PA, they all say soda. Because soda is A NORMAL THING TO SAY. Pop is not. NOT.

Although I pronounce "coffee" the same way as the first portion of "caffeine" as opposed to cough-e, so I really cannot throw too many stones. Fucking midwest!

[balefully]

I definitely have friends from Ohio and Illinois who say "pop", so it's just an. Up-there sort of thing. I think.

[kashmir1]

WEIRD. I'm from PA and everyone I know says soda but if I go down to say, Pittsburgh, people call it pop which I think is COMPLETELY unnatural.

[deirdre_c]

OMG the "pop" thing around here is nutty. (Then again, where I'm from, any dark carbonated beverage is often referred to generically as a Coke. Pepsi, root beer, Dr. Pepper whatever = "you want a Coke?")

[causeways]

You know, the Coke thing actually doesn't sound odd to me either. *ponders*

[azephirin]

Ditto r/e Coke! Actually, where I grew up, it was any sweetened carbonated beverage: Sprite, RC, not Pepsi because Pepsi is THE DEVIL, root beer, actual Coke, Dr. Pepper, Fanta grape, etc.

[deirdre_c]

Ugh. Too True! Pepsi? It's like POISON, really.

And yes, I love how down South you can ask for "one of them Cokes in the cooler" and someone casually passes you a Sprite and no one thinks twice about it.

[flamehail]

We do that in New Mexico too, at least sometimes! Someone asks, "What do you want to drink?" and you say, "Can I get a coke?" and she says, "Sure, what do you want? We have
Sprite, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew...."

Pop is just WRONG. And WEIRD. But it's a midwest thing. Blargh.

[causeways]

In Virginia (or at least in Virginia Beach, because now Lucy's going to give me all this shit about not making Virginia generalizations when Northern Virginians are Virginians too *g*) it can either be I-whatever or just whatever. So I-64 and 64 both sound equally right to me. I'd probably say 64 more often, but I think that's just because I am kind of lazy.

I think I know some Minnesotans who say pop too though. Hmm.

Hahaha, and in the summer I live in southern New Jersey, right, where there is a place I like to go sometimes called Coffee Talk. And a significant number of people I know pronounce both the o and the a like the au in 'caught': Cauffee Taulk. If I hang out with people who say it like that too much, I start picking that up too (since I am a terrible accent sponge), so I've found myself pronouncing the word watches 'wautches' before. NOT GOOD TIMES.

[oxoniensis]

Lots of Brits say pop too - soda sounds really American to me! *g*

[arabella_hope]

When I was a child, we were in Ohio, I think, and the waitress asked me if I wanted a pop and I FREAKED OUT. I thought she was gonna hit me.

*is Floridian to the core*