Regional linguistics are always a blast. A student at Cal-Tech condutced a not so scientific, but still pretty entertaining, survey of what term people use to refer to carbonated beverages and where they are located in North America. The majority of the responses are pop, soda and the not so generic southern favorite "coke." Check out the Pop vs. Soda page.

I was interested to see that both Ohio and Washington State fall primarily into the "pop" realm, meaning that Seattle is more like the midwest than the east coast (how's that for jump in logic?).

Oh yeah, so I want to do a follow up survey to see the regional variations on the made up plural for you, like "ya'll", "yous guys", and the Pittsburgh favorite "yinz."

As I'm coming to the end of the book No Logo I've found myself really tuned in to how products are branded. I just found a really excellent site, created by PBS, that helps kids become more media savvy. The site is called Don't By It and it has lots of great info targeted to the teen/tween set.