Different Names for the Same Thing: Soft Drinks and other Treats
Posted: Friday, January 05, 2007
by Jim Stillman
I grew up in Haverhill, Essex county, Massachusetts. I went to college in Boston and, eventually, law school in New York City. I didn't realize the unique language with which I was raised until I brought my fiancée, who was raised in New Jersey, home to my folks. The visit was fraught with tension and nervousness on both our parts and my mother, in an effort to be cordial, asked whether Joan would like a "tonic". Joan, on her part, immediately worried that she appeared weak or sickly, for why else would she be offered a medicinal brew. The confusion was cleared up by my explaining that, in this region of eastern Massachusetts, the generic term for a carbonated soft drink was "tonic". This term is utilized, it seems, in only a handful of Massachusetts counties in the north-east part of the state and in a few areas of New Hampshire and southern Maine.
But first, let us address names for soft drinks.
Drinks are considered "soft" to distinguish them from "hard" drinks that contain alcohol. For the purposes here, I limit the term "soft drinks" to carbonated beverages, although it is true that non-carbonated fruit drinks such as lemonade or iced coffee or tea would also fit the definition. As I was growing up, and even now, I consider soft drinks as being brown (cola or root beer), or clear (citrus flavored combinations such as 7-Up) or slightly colored (as ginger ale).
As I have written, in the small area of Massachusetts where I grew up, the term for any soft drink was "tonic". No one would have referred to "soda" because that was a wholly different drink, a carbonated plain water, known to the rest of the country as "club soda" or, in New York and Miami, "seltzer".
As one travels north or south from my home town, the generic name for a soft drink shifts to "soda" and moving west from the New York-New Jersey area, the term is "pop". In the middle, as a transition, the phrase "soda-pop" is common. According to a comprehensive survey, cited under Resources, the far southwest is, also, "soda" country and "pop" is mostly common in the mid-west.
Interestingly, in the south, except where it has been corrupted by vacationing and expatriate New Yorkers, the term "coke" is used often to describe all cola-type beverages, a fact that must drive the Coca-Cola company nuts!
Back to New England for a moment. There was a popular cola-type tonic in our area which was a true medicinal-type tonic. It's name was Moxie and it deserves some special recognition. First, I think the stuff tastes vile, although I have not been introduced to its revival as a drink to be mixed with bourbon and other forms of liquor. Moxie claims to be the first mass produced soft drink, created by a Dr. Thompson of Maine. It was first marketed as a true tonic, a patent medicine, guaranteed to cure "loss of manhood" and other assorted diseases. The drink, which tasted absolutely horrible, was the origin of the word "moxie" as, "He showed a lot of moxie."
The drink lost all popularity outside of the northern New England States (it was, in 2005, declared the "official soft drink of Maine"). There is a web site that lists places throughout the United States where one can purchase Moxie, including a small store in Lutz, Florida, where I live now. Several years ago, I saw a display in that store and tried a can.
It still tasted lousy.
Meanings of soda and other ice cream treats.
I have discussed my mother's offering Joan a "tonic" and the latter not understanding that this term for a soft drink was, in New Jersey, not comprehensible; in Jersey and in many other areas, the term was "soda". But soda had a number of other meanings to the New Englander.
Soda, by itself, was what the rest of the country knows as "club soda", carbonated water. An "ice cream soda" on the other hand, was prepared in a tall glass, first with an ounce or two of milk, then a squirt of syrup (chocolate, strawberry, coffee, whatever). The glass was then filled almost to the top with soda water, under pressure. The final touch was the scoop of ice cream floating on the top.
It should be noted that this same drink, without the ice cream, is known in New York City as an "egg cream". Since the drink has neither egg nor cream, it is an illustration of crazy New Yorkers.
Leave off the soda water and mix syrup and milk, one gets what we called in New England a "milk shake". Travel south to New York and in many other places, a milk shake is the same drink with ice cream beaten or blended by a machine. In New England, this type of milkshake, with ice cream, is a "frappe" [pronounced frap] and, to further confuse matters, in Rhode Island for reasons no one understands, the same mixture is a "cabinet". Go figure.
Regions hold their special terms to be very important.
The United States is a large country, large enough to have many areas of diversity. Stuff we eat is just an example of the ways we are different.
Célébrez les différences
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