page_title: Names for soft drinks in the United States
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Names for soft drinks in the United States / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Short article from the Washington Daily Star, District of Columbia, published on July 6, 1854, using the word "pop" to describe a beverage.
context_page_description: Names for soft drinks in the United States vary regionally. "Soda" and "pop" are the most common terms for soft drinks nationally, although other terms are used, especially "coke" in the South. Since individual names tend to dominate regionally, the use of a particular term can be an act of geographic identity. The choice of terminology is most closely associated with geographic origin, rather than other factors such as race, age, or income. The differences in naming have been the subject of scholarly studies. Cambridge linguist Bert Vaux, in particular, has studied the "pop vs. soda debate" in conjunction with other regional vocabularies of American English.
context_section_description: According to writer Andrew Schloss, "soda" derives from sodium, a common mineral in natural springs, and was first used to describe carbonation in 1802.
   The earliest known usage of "pop" is from 1812; in a letter to his wife, poet Robert Southey says the drink is "called pop because pop goes the cork when it is drawn, & pop you would go off too if you drank too much of it." The two words were later combined into "soda pop" in 1863. Schloss gives the following years as the first attestations of the various terms for these beverages:
caption: Short article from the Washington Daily Star, District of Columbia, published on July 6, 1854, using the word "pop" to describe a beverage.
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