Do You Say Coke, Pop or Soda? Survey Says It Depends on Where You Live

How do you describe the meteorological occurrence during which rain falls while the sun is shining?

If you're from Alabama or Mississippi, chances are you describe the situation as "the devil beating his wife" (I am from Alabama. I can attest to this).

That phrase was just one of the linguistical oddities uncovered during a dialect survey by Bert Vaux. North Carolina State graduate student Joshua Katz recently mined this data for an end-of-year statistics project and created a series of maps showing the various dialect differences.

Other distinct regional variations involved the pronunciation of the words caramel, lawyer and pecan (I don't care where you live, "Pee-can" is wrong. So wrong.)

The project also showed that where you live determines if you call a carbonated beverage a soda, pop or coke. Location also determines if you address a group of people as "you guys," "you all" or "ya'll."

Katz's project includes a fascinating map page which allows users to pull up 122 different maps showing regional differences for various words and phrases.

Editor's note: Thank you to Joshua Katz for allowing Patch to use his map with this article.

Do you say coke, soda or pop? What do you call it when it rains while the sun is shining? What words or phrases do you use that could be thought of as unique to our region? Let us know in the comments.