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Path: utzoo!decvax!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!lanl!unmvax!cliff
From: cliff@unmvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Pop vs. Soda (with obligatory flame)
Message-ID: <797@unmvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Apr-85 16:49:40 EST
Article-I.D.: unmvax.797
Posted: Sat Apr 20 16:49:40 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Apr-85 05:22:53 EST
References: <457@daemen.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Lines: 56

> 	As you can tell by my UUCP address, I go to school in
> Buffalo. They call all carbonated beverages, POP, and swear that
> those of us who call it SODA are brain damaged. :-)
> 	I was under the assumption that most of the U.S.
> call it SODA, my question to the net is, what do you call it.

I learned to call carbonated beverages soda when I started elementary
school in New Mexico.  After my fourth grade our family moved to Portsmouth
New Hampshire.  I don't remember the exact circumstances, perhaps soda
was not permitted in the cafeteria, but I was approached by some figure
of authority and asked

"Is that a tonic?"

referring to the soda I had in my hand.  I had never heard of a soda
being called a tonic, although I was familiar with non-edible tonics
(i.e. hair tonics).  I said that it wasn't, perhaps throwing in the
comment "it's a soda" (I really don't remember all the specifics).  Of
course I was reprimanded for being a wise-guy.

Hope that helps.  Now I will switch to a different subject for the obligatory
flame:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

     Aren't people who use capital letters to stress points just inviting
trouble when the points that are stressed are not well researched?  Shouldn't
people who argue from authority admit their mistakes when a direct quote from
*their* authority explictly denies the correctness of their assumption?  Is
there a term for two or more people that see a perfectly correct posting on
the net and decide to instigate a little one-upmanship in the same subject
area as the original postint, even though these individuals agree that the
original posting was correct?  (without introducing the specifics, a
hypothetical example of what I am talking about can be represented as follows:

CM posts:  2 + 2 = 4

CM receives mail from PH and SN:
So Mr. Mathmatician you think you know everything,  what is 
  /---------------
\/  (n+1) * (n-1)

I would like to propose the phrase tag-team-kinder for such people, since the
practice seems to be very similar to the kids in kindergarten that try to
impress other people with a few parroted comments that they have picked up
from their older siblings, especially since the kids usually screw up somewhere
since they don't really have anything but a superficial knowledge of the
subject at hand.  In our example this would correspond to:

SN:  YOU ARE WRONG!  THE ANSWER IS N+1.

Hopefully everyone gets the point.  Perhaps this wasn't a flame as much as
an attempt to give a name to an observed Usenet phenomenon.  Any better
names will be considered.

					--Cliff