Pop vs. soda, and other words Americans can't agree on
Pop versus soda, you guys versus y’all.
There's a big difference in how Americans refer to certain words.
North Carolina State University Ph.D student Joshua Katz mapped out the differences in regional dialects in the mainland U.S. for his end-of-the-year statistics project.
The project focused on a 122-question survey done by Cambridge University on pronunciations and word preference.
Possibly the most popular revelation of the study focused which parts of the U.S. say “pop” versus “soda” when referring to a sweetened, carbonated beverage. Californians are decisively ‘soda’, whereas Washingtonians prefer the term ‘pop’.
Katz went even more specific, mapping out the results from city to city. He found the nation is also divided on how to say “tomato”, “coleslaw”, and “kitty-corner” vs. “catty-corner”.
See the highlights of the project and read more about the study here.