One thing that drove me absolutely mad is the fact that people in Ottawa keep referring to soft drinks as “pop”. I thought it was just me being crazy, but my mom and sister were completely baffled by it, too. Every time someone mentioned “pop” we had to think for a split second about wtf they were talking about. I mentioned this on twitter and was sent to a survey about the Pop vs. Soda Controversy. As you can see, the “pop” scourge is especially predominant around the East-Central United States and most populated areas of Canada.

In Quebec, we typically call the drinks by their brand name (like “Coke”, or “Pepsi”, or “7-Up”) and use “soft drink” (or “boisson gazeuse”) as a generic term. The Pop vs. Soda page confirmed this. You occasionally hear people say “soda”, but almost never pop. It serves as a marker for people who come from out-of-province. I wonder if this is in part because of the great Pepsi vs. Coke Controversy, since <sweeping generalization>francophones typically prefer Pepsi while anglophones prefer Coca-Cola</sweeping generalization>. Therefore, it’s necessary to differentiate competing brands of soft drink by referring to them by their brand name instead of a generic term. Our generic term preference for “soft drink” in English is probably influenced by the fact that the French term is “boisson gazeuse” and sometimes just “liqueur”. I imagine that in translating from one to the other, “soft drink” seems much closer than “soda” or “pop”. It also sounds better than “gaseous drink”. (Although the term “liqueur douce” does exist, it’s rarely used.)

Idle speculation aside, I don’t think I could ever get used to “pop”. I’ll always end up doing a double-take and try to figure out what people are talking about. I think I’ll just place all my beverage orders in French to avoid the controversy altogether… at least until someone wages a war between “boisson gazeuse” and “liqueur”.

Her speech is ripped straight out of Neuromancer. Awesome.