Saturday July 21, 2007

Growing up in Cleveland, I was keenly aware of the precise location of the exceptionally sharp “pop”-”soda” line between the Midwest and Northeast. (While it maps the spine of the Appalachians for most of its length, it curiously runs through upstate New York between Rochester and Syracuse.) North Carolina is more of a jumble on this map than I found in my experience (“soda” was predominant among those I met) … the most interesting feature here to me is the lack of “pop” usage in the areas around the decidedly Midwestern cities of St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis. Further, the pattern in the western states follows state boundaries closely, though for indeterminate reasons. What I also find interesting is that the various terms tend to map well onto predominant spatio-political divisions.