Soda or Pop? Examining Language Change In Wyoming

There is an argument that has been going on for decades. The question is what do Wyomingites call those delicious carbonated soft drinks: "soda" or "pop"?

Depending on who you ask, you're liable to get a multitude of different responses. Personally, I think it depends on a few different things. For instance:

• Have you lived in Wyoming your entire life?
• Where are you originally from?
• How long have you been here?
• What age did you move here?
• Where are your parents originally from?

You can just about guess what part of the country folks are from by certain slang and everyday language terms anyway.

There's a Facebook page dedicated to mostly posting memes about history and politics, called Daily Reminder, that has seemingly cracked the code to the national soda versus pop debate. On Sunday, December 10th, 2023 shared the following graphic (shown below), which breaks down the areas in the United States that primarily use these terms for soft drinks:

• Pop
• Soda
• Coke

As you can see, the study (I use the term "study" dubiously, as I could neither confirm nor deny with this data came from), clearly states that in 1947, pop was the more prevalent term for Wyoming residents, but now, in 2023, soda is the more widespread term.

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I must admit, this kind of hurt my feelings, because I am one of the people that use the term pop more often. With that being said, although I was born in Wyoming (Casper to be exact), I left for over twenty years and traveled, as well as lived, quite literally around the world. With that being said, even my Wyoming born and bred children said soda, so that does lead credence to the data.

Do you agree? Are you a soda person? Technically speaking, both are correct since the full term is "soda pop", but the Wikipedia entry for soft drink states, according to a 2003 Harvard Dialect Survey, soda is the preferred term in most of North America.