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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3224 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 17, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Cultural imperialism in one image.

I see myself in this. I grew up saying "pop" and never thought twice about it until I went to college. There, I met "soda" sayers who planted the first seeds of doubt.

After college, I moved to Seattle. It was still pop country back then, but in the merge of a cultural transition. It's firmly a part of Sodastan now. Worse, I am now myself a soda-sayer. I cringe a little when people say pop.

I'll admit to a rebellious instinct. Fuck the soda-sayers. Sometimes, I just want to let loose with a hard "pop" in the best upper Minnesota accent I can muster. "You guys want some POP?" But that would be mere playacting, not authentic self-expression. I'm no longer street. I've been corrupted.

Is this what it feels like to be elite human capital?

I can understand using the term "soda" and "coke" is of course obvious but "pop"? Seriously? What kind of idiot thought about that term?

The earliest known usage of "pop" is from 1812; in a letter to his wife, poet Robert Southey says the drink is "called pop because pop goes the cork when it is drawn, & pop you would go off too if you drank too much of it." The two words were later combined into "soda pop" in 1863

Presumably somebody who noticed that it has bubbles in it, and bubbles pop.

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