I live in Atlanta (for three more weeks) but I was also born and raised in the state of Georgia in the suburbs of Atlanta. This city is the Coke capital of the world, where Coke was founded as a drink that actually contained Cocaine as a prescription for medicinal purposes. Growing up here, my friends and I have had many discussions over the years about what people call carbonated beverages. In the south, you can ask someone for a Coke and you could really want a Spite, a Dr. Pepper, or even a Fresca. Atlanta is also the place that people move to. In elementary school it was like a little game -- what state were you born in? It felt like there were more people born in California, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, or basically a state that is not Georgia or does not surround Georgia. Occasionally we would get people from Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and South Carolina, but these people usually migrate here for college or employment reasons thereafter and not during the elementary school years.
But the one thing we all in common was being in the land of coke. And even though people tried to bring their love of Pepsi to the south, it never really took. My friends and I stared at each other in horror when we would go to a fast food or restaurant chain that featured Pepsi products as the carbonated beverage options. Pepsi tasted nothing like Coke. Mountain Dew is green and scary (though others later learned to enjoy it stay awake), Sierra Mist has a strange name and doesn't take exactly like Sprite, and there was a lemonade product. I was saved occasionally if Pepsi had teamed up with Dr. Pepper to replace Mr. Pibb in the service offerings.
Coke was everywhere. The above did not happen often. I believe Taco Bell and a few other places are the Pepsi champions but even chains that regularly offer Pepsi products can be bought and I imagine that's what happened. Virtually all restaurants of all calibers, both expensive and cheap, offer only Coke drinks and, of course, freshly brewed sweet tea. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do when I move to Chicago -- it's a double whammy. I will probably be greeted with Pepsi drinks and unsweet tea or worse, no iced tea at all.
But I digress. The point is that the word "Coke" has replaced "soda." You can ask someone for a Coke and want any type of soft drink. People might look at you funny if you ask for a soda. Personally, I use the word "soft drink" before I use "soda," which is odd, because "soft drink" is two words versus one and it's harder to say. Every time I use the word "soda" I say it with a marked nothern accent. My friends and I used to discuss this, though we never really got anywhere with it. We used to ask each other what other people call it in other areas. We had a difficult time imagining asking anyone to grab us a "pop" as they were on their way to the kitchen.
I was thrilled to discover that someone made a graphical depiction of these terms at wikipedia. It's sort of like a childhood dream come true....
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