I realise that yes, this is very political. I may be crossing a line here.
Meanwhile, in England, we do actually call them fizzy drinks.
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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Meanwhile in Scotland... a work colleague asked me to get him a juice, as I was going to the canteen. "What flavour? Orange? Apple?" "Irn-Bru." Seriously, any fizzy drink is juice. Coke is juice.
If you trace the ingredients back far enough, they came from a plant. Or were within sight of one.
In the south of Scotland you can also hear the term "ginger" to mean juice
https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/6518
Personally I say fizzy juice, fruit juice, or squash (diluting juice) to distinguish between them and I think that roughly holds amongst most northern Scots.
Ginger, I haven't heard that one! Describes the look of Irn-Bru at least.
How about "soft drinks"? Sometimes (in the US) I see that as a catch-all term for sodas (to contrast with "hard drink," i.e. a drink with liquor in it.)
Other non-US anglophones, is that a common term where you live?
In France we actually also use the English word « softs » for non-alcoholic beverages.
The thing is, like you also seem to understand it, it doesn’t have to be fizzy.
in india, we use soft drinks as the prefered word, but some older folks just directly refer to brand names they remeber from their child hood
Imperial sattelite states don't count as actual England
I was born and raised in England. I moved out here in 2019
Ah. Your Canadian is very good!
Meanwhile, in Germany: Limo
To add oil to the fire, "Limo" is a shortened "Limonade", the German equivalent of "lemonade". "Limonade" is understood to be any carbonated soft drink, including colas.
That means that in Germany lemonade does not have to contain lemons and American-style homemade lemonade typically wouldn't be considered lemonade in Germany since it's not carbonated.
Ahh, clarity of language...
Still beats the Dutch "frisdrank"
Literally "chill drink". Technically, it doesn't include juice, water, nor beer, chilled or not. Although most menu's do put juice/water in the same category.
In Germany we have "Erfrischungsgetränk" (= "refreshment beverage"), which works similarly, although it's a bit more specific about juice: "Fruchtsaft" ("fruit juice") and "Nektar" ("nectar"; watered down juice from fruits where the pulp content is so high that straight juice would be undrinkable) are excluded, while "Fruchtsaftgetränke" ("fruit juice beverages", fruit-based beverages without alcohol that aren't Nektar or straight juice) are included.
Most people don't worry too much about the specific differences, although they can be relevant to conscious buyers: Something might taste like actual juice but is really watered down with added sugar; that's a Fruchtsaftgetränk, not a Fruchtsaft.
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If I want a lemonade, as in the lemo juice+water+sugar combo, what exactly do I ask for?
Zitronenlimonade, which translates to lemon lemonade
I for sure won't end up with Sprite?
I'm not sure, actually. It's not a common drink in Germany; we like our fizzy water and there's a certain expectation that even house-made lemonades have at least some carbonation. I don't know if any place I've ever been to serves it. You might have to describe it.
A less unheard of version would be water + a small amount of lemon juice but that would be "water with lemon juice".
And what if I want the same thing, but carbonated?
Minnesota is going through hell this month, and here you are trying to start another war.
You're my soda pop 🍾
My grandparents called it tonic
Older people from the US South call it all coke
Commercially they’re called soft drinks
I usually refer to whatever specific one applicable by its approximate brand name ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Most all people in the deep south call everything Coke, as Pepsi products might as well not exist. Everything are literally Coke products regardless of what type of soda they are.
Most people in the far north call everything pop
Everybody in the middle and off to either coast call it soda, with some small pockets of people saying soda pop
Commercially theyre soft drinks since they dont have alcohol, but Ive never met anyone that orders a “soft drink” when they want a soda
Commercially theyre soft drinks since they dont have alcohol, but Ive never met anyone that orders a “soft drink” when they want a soda
Techically water, tea, coffee, etc. are also soft drinks
Can confirm the US South one… “I’ll have a coke”, “sure, what type?” “Sprite”
I think tonic was a really local dialect. Were your grandparents from New England by any chance?
They're just called fizzy water, or dizzy drinks here. Although the shops call them 'sparkling'
So.. coke is a sparkling drink? Gotta say that sounds weird to me. Which country is this?
UK. Although they don't usually specify 'sparkling' in the shop if it's a brand name thing like Coca Cola or Ribena or Appletiser or whatever
They're all Coke!
I'm reasonably sure the context there is gender neutral, though. At least, based on the 5 partial watch-alongs and multiple impromptu karaoke sessions I've experienced courtesy of my wife.
Sody Pop!
In Mexico, in the north they're called sodas, in the center and south it's refrescos, and there might be a few weird, heathen pockets where they call them gaseosas.
Carbonated liquid candy
It's pronounced gif
Here, you'll love this post
https://piefed.social/c/nonpolitical_comics/p/1654859/smbc-jpeg
Oh yeah, that's a great one, although why anyone would say anything other than jfeg is beyond me
Here, have a gift in return
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Correct answer: Champagne
Lemonade
In Brazil we call it 'refrigerante' which is quite similar to what we call a fridge, which is 'refrigerador' (tho most people call it 'geladeira'). I have no idea why, but sodas do taste better chilled
It's also called "gasosa" (gaseous), depending on the actual dialect. Some even distinguish both.
On refrigerante vs. refrigerador, both are from the verb refrigerar (to cool). Originally their suffixes did different things:
- the -(e)nte in "refrigerante" would be an active participle, allowing the verb to behave like it was an adjective. You can still use this suffix this way, for example in "a moça cantante está triste", but note how old-fashioned it sounds like.
- the -dor(a) in "refrigerador" is a "proper" agent nominaliser, converting (in. Unlike the above, it "should" convert the verb into a noun.
So "refrigerante" would be loosely "cooling" (as in, a cooling drink = bebida refrigerante), and "refrigerador" would be "cooler" (as in, the cooler).
That's fine until you remember Portuguese allows you to convert adjectives into nouns by simply using them as nouns, no fancy derivation needed. So that all those verb forms ending in -(e)nte were also being used as nouns. "A bebida refrigerante" → "o refrigerante", boom, new noun.
To make it worse -(e)nte is falling into disuse. In some cases it has been replaced by the gerund (refrigerando) or infinitive gerundive (a refrigerar); but in most cases by that -dor(a), since they were both in the same turf. As a result, people are losing track of the association between the verb and the noun (that used to be a verb form): presidente/presidir, agente/agir, pedinte/pedir etc.
Polish creativeness rises and if it's specifically fizzy soda... "napój gazowany", aka carbonated drink.
...thus, most of poles I know just say what they actually want - cola, mountain dew, fanta etc.
Excuse me, I'm from the south and we call it Coke.
What kind of coke would you like? We've got Dr pepper sprite Pepsi and coke
Everyone knows if it's dark its a coke if it's light it's a sprite.
And if it's yellow, let it mellow.
In Australia we usually call them soft drinks (even when alcohol is not even remotely relevant) or kids call them fizzy drink.
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