Soda.

We called it coke growing up, even though we were a Pepsi family. We went to visit family up north, and fell in love with the Pop Shoppe.
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soda (NorCal)

pop!
(Canadian data point.)

Effervescent.

Perrier.

Fizzy.

although it's reasonably common usage - in my part of NZ anyway - it stopped when I was about 10 or so and I spent the rest of my NZ life not using a generic term for soda. Then I moved to the US, and say soda.

Soda.

Coke. Because it's usually Coca-Cola. Unless it's ginger ale. Then I call it "ginger ale."

I grew up in a "pop" area, moved to a "Coke" area, and now live in a "soda" area. But "soda" is just wrong, because that means soda water. And really, I prefer "soft drink," but that makes me sound like a fast-food menu writer. So the whole thing's fraught and due to the trauma, I just try to avoid all carbonated flavored beverages to the best of my ability.

Coke for most things carbonated (root beer, Mt. Dew, Coke, Pepsi, Fanta, whatever). Like occhi, I don't call ginger ale Coke.

One of my best friends calls it a "cold drink". I think that's cute.

Actually, what I'd like to call the fizzy beverage that's most often in my fridge is "frizzy water," but people look at me funny when I do so. But it's frizzante in Italian, and "frizzy" just seems more accurate than "fizzy" -- more jangly and mineraly, somehow.

I was so sure this was a recent AskMe but I think I was misremembering the "hoagie/sub" thread. The most recent survey on soda/pop/coke was actually 2004.

Anyway, I'm Canadian, so duh, it's pop!

what do you call that fizzy drink in the fridge?

Milk. We don't clean the fridge much.

Coke/soda.

And I think I'll have to put that macro on the fridge at some point in time. (My mother gets all pissy when places don't serve Pepsi. I buy what's on sale.)

Here in Arkansas, the most common is, by far, 'coke.' I usually say 'soda,' though.

I've lived in 'pop' country for twenty years but I still say 'soda'.

I've lived most of my life in Chicago and thereabouts, but when I was a kid I apparently was a Southerner, because we called everything Coke. Mostly because that's what it was, usually -- except at my grandparents', where we mostly drank Dr. Pepper.

But to answer the question: soda or soft drink.

I say "pop". I am after all, Canadian. Funny story:

When I was in first year of uni a friend and took a road trip on my spring break. We were pretty broke, so short was good...we ended up traveling to Rochester NY, to visit the Great House of Guitars. On the way back, we figured we'd eat before we crossed the border, so stopped at a Pizza Hut. Before the waitress arrived, my friend Steve very carefully explained to me that in the states, they don't call it "pop", they call it "soda".

Cue the waitress, I ask for an iced tea, and Steve asks for a soda. His request elicited a very funny look on the waitress' face as she paused a beat, then asked, "And what KIND of soda would you like?". I bit my tongue until she walked away, Steve blushing like a madman, and then I thanked him for helping us blend in and not look like idiots.

The conversation in Texas usually goes like this:

"You want a coke?"
"Sure!"
"What kind?"
"Dr. Pepper."

You answered exactly the question I was going to ask, pups.

I chose "soda" as an intentional rejection of my parents' "pop" (I live in Kansas City; they grew up in rural Kansas and Missouri).

I say "missour-ee" instead of "missou-rah" for the same reason.

hm.

none of the above. in rural southwestern Ohio where I spent most of my formative years you'd typically ask for an "RC", sometimes a "yoo-hoo". Kids who asked for the generic "pop" were weird suburbanites whom we typically viewed with disdain.

this was in the seventies tho, so ymmv.

what do you call that fizzy drink in the fridge?

Beer.

Hah, jonmc.

I say soda or diet coke (which might mean diet dr. pepper or anything else), but I don't say diet soda the same way.

The husband actually says "soda-pop", but he drinks it warm anyway, so yeah, what a freak, hu?

Soda == Soda water.

Coke == Coke.

Therefore: Pop.

seltzer = soda water.

:P

I've only heard the "What kind of Coke?" line used when someone was telling me that's how they do it in Texas. I've never actually heard it used sincerely (even in Texas, not that I've spent a ton of time there). I look forward to the day it finally happens to me.

Anyway, I grew up saying pop (my parents were from a pop region), but we eventually transitioned to soda and that's what I say now.

I see this repeated over and over, the notion that Coke is used throughout the South as a generic term for a carbonated beverage. This might be truer the farther one goes from the heart of Georgia, but Coca-Cola HQ is right here on North Avenue. One Coca-Cola Plaza.

In Atlanta, when we ask for a Coke, it'd better damned well be a Coca-Cola. A Coke is not a Pepsi. A Coke is not a root beer, a lemon-lime soda or a ginger ale. And while Atlantans might debate the merits of living inside the Perimeter* versus outside the Perimeter, we're all rather unified in our appreciation/recognition of the local soft drink of multi-national merit.

So much so that you can watch waiters tense up at restaurants that sell only Pepsico products.

Waiter: Can I get you started with some drinks?
Patron: Yeah, thanks, can I get a Coke, please?
Waiter [trying to hide a grimace, bracing himself]: Ah. Is Pepsi ... okay?
Patron [disappointed]: No. I'l just have a water ... unless you have sweet iced tea?
Waiter [dying inside]: Um. It's not sweetened ...
Patron [sighing]: That's okay.** Water'll be fine, I guess.

* - I-285, the by-pass than encircles metro Atlanta.
** - It's very much not okay, by the way.

"Soda pop". No, really. They always miss that one.

Beer.

I call it soda because i grew up in St. Louis. I live in Columbia, MO now, and there should be an all of the above color for places like this. I've literally heard every single one of these used in the last week. We are a melting pot inside a melting pot shrouded in a mystery and wrapped up in an enigma or maybe just a college town with an internationally renowned Journalism school.