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Comment by andrewla | Hacker News Reader

Also of interest is the "Harvard Dialect Survey" [1], which gives direct questions and highlights the regional variances. My favorite is "standing on line" vs "standing in line" -- I had never even heard the "on line" variant until I moved to NYC, where it is ubiquitous.

Apparently now there's the "THE CAMBRIDGE ONLINE SURVEY OF WORLD ENGLISHES" [2], apparently by the same individual, but I've only just started looking at it.

[1] http://dialect.redlog.net/maps.html

[2] http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/cambridge_survey/

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"Do you say pop or soda?"

There is no option for "ginger".... not impressed ;-)

I've also heard coke or irn bru being called "juice" :D

Where uses "ginger"? That's a new one for me.

I don't know if it is what the other poster is talking about but Michigan is weird in that a relatively large number of people drink ginger ale as a soft drink, particularly Vernors.

Just for the record to prevent any potential confusion: we Michiganders don't call pop "ginger". We do like our ginger ale though (particularly Vernors, but Canada Dry isn't bad).

For a very long time, I thought "ginger" was something used in England for the most part instead of the US. I don't know where they say it regularly in the US, though. I'm now curious too.

In Scotland. Where the most popular soft drink, Irn Bru, is a bright orange colour.

We also use the word "juice", which I feel reflects badly on our diet.

I've had it. You can usually get it in the US in the "Ethnic Food" aisles at reasonably-sized grocery stores.

Aside from being orange, I don't have recollections of a very gingery flavor tho...

Normal Irn Bru is just made from sugar and rust (OK, ammonium ferric citrate if you're being picky) so it doesn't taste like ginger.

I do recall there being a "spicy" variant a few years ago that did taste a bit like ginger but, as I can't stand Irn Bru at the best of times, I don't recall the details.

Source: married to a Scot that basically lives off the stuff. Bit surprised she isn't magnetic.

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